Sequoia Surge – Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia revealed 15 early stage startup it has selected for the seventh cohort of its Surge accelerator programs, driving new investments even as deal activity has slowed considerably in the region.
Since its launch in March 2019, the accelerator has helped its participating startup collectively raise more than $1.7 billion in follow on funding, the venture firm said, with more than 60% of companies from the first five cohort increasing its Serie A and beyond.
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Sequoia Surge reveals India SEA startup
The Surge program, which has supported more than 127 startups, initially issued check of between $1 million and $2 million each to startups, but has since increased the amount of support to as much as $3 million. Some notable startups from previous Surge cohorts include Doubtnut, Scaler Academy, Khatabook, Bijak, Classplus, Hevo Data, Juno, Atlan, BukuKas, Plum, and Apna Club.
The new cohort includes startups trying to introduce tools to simplify workflows and solve bigger challenges, including climate change.
Sequoia said its cohort includes some startups it partnered with when they didn’t have any products, as well as those run by founders and repeat entrepreneurs with deep experience in their respective industries. These founders include the former CFO of fashion e-commerce platform Nykaa, machine learning engineers who worked on conversational AI at Meta, and Uber’s first group of engineers in India.
We continue to be deeply impressed by the ambition and diversity of ideas, as well as the caliber of the founders of each cohort. Surge 07 is no exception. We have partnered with all of our companies at their earliest stage of business creation, and almost half of them were still in pre-launch at the start of our partnerships,” said Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Sequoia India and South East Asia, and It comes up, in a prepared statement. (Sequoia Surge )
Our founders bring with them a wealth of experience and creativity, and we believe that these dreamers, innovators and category creators have the potential to change the future of our region and the world, he added.
Most of the startup in the new cohort are building for global markets and targeting audiences beyond their headquarter. Nearly half of them have a presence in the US and European markets, Sequoia said.
The founders of Surge’s seventh cohort will go through a 16 week hybrid program to get training and mentorship from industry veterans and storied entrepreneurs. (Sequoia Surge )
Below is the list of startups available in the seventh cohort.
- Attentive, a SaaS vertical, is building a sales automation platform for America’s outdoor service contractors. Info Edge Ventures is a co-investor.
- Beam is creating a one-click checkout solution that enables a frictionless checkout experience for sellers and buyers in Southeast Asia. Partech Partners is a co-investor.
- Boxs is launching a design-to-build automation platform for architects, interior designers, and construction companies.
- BuyerAssist aims to help B2B revenue teams with so-called Mutual Success Plans MSP to effectively align and collaborate with their buyers throughout the journey. Emergent Ventures and Stellaris Venture Partners are co-investors.
- ClearFeed is a collaboration platform that uses AI models to enable natural language ticketing in Slack and Microsoft Teams and provides seamless connectivity to back-end ticketing tools like Zendesk, Salesforce, and service software. to the Freshworks Freshdesk client. 8VC is a coinvestor.
- Gan uses AI to create personalized videos at scale, enabling brands to create personal connections with their customers. He also got funding from Emergent Ventures. (Sequoia Surge)
- Hatica aims to provide engineering managers and leaders with the visibility and insights to help them build healthy and productive engineering teams. Kae Capital is an investor.
- Metaschool says it’s making it easier for developers to learn, build, and ship dApps to prepare them for opportunities in the emerging web3 ecosystem. Luno, Global Ventures, and Polygon Ventures are co-investors.
- PixCap is an animation platform that allows users with no design experience to create animations for illustrations, games, and 3D designs. Cocoon Capital and Entrepreneur First are co-investors. (Sequoia Surge)
- Pratech Brands plans to help new age Indian consumers improve their quality of life through better home and health products.
- Semaai is building a complete technology solution for the Indonesian agricultural sector. Beenext is a co-investor.
- TrueFoundry is a development platform that aims to help startups deploy and monitor machine learning ML models at the speed of large tech companies, in minutes or days instead of weeks or months. Eniac Ventures is a co-investor.
- Unravel Carbon helps companies track and reduce their carbon emissions using its software. Alpha JWC Ventures, Amasia, GFC, Rebel Fund, XA Network and Y Combinator.
- Whiz is a fintech company in Indonesia, where its goal is to serve teenagers. AC Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Ondine Capital, and Y Combinator have also backed the startup.