Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia have announced 15 early-stage startups it has selected for the seventh cohort of its Surge accelerator program, continuing new investments even as deal activity in the region has slowed significantly.
Since its March 2019 launch, the accelerator has helped participating startups collectively raise more than $1.7 billion in follow-up funding, the venture firm said, with more than 60% of companies from the first five cohorts developing their Series A. and then increased.
The Surge program, which has supported more than 127 startups, initially issued checks for between $1 million and $2 million per startup, but has since increased the support amount to $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 a number of startups it partnered with when they didn’t have a product, as well as those run by returning founders and entrepreneurs with extensive 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 set of engineers in India.
“We remain deeply impressed by the ambition and diversity of ideas, as well as the caliber of the founders at each cohort. Surge 07 is no exception. We are working with all of our companies in their earliest stages of business building, with nearly half still in pre-launch at the start of our partnerships,” said Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Sequoia India & Southeast Asia, and Surge, in a prepared declaration.
“Our founders bring with them a wealth of experience and creativity, and we believe these dreamers, innovators and category makers have the potential to change the future of our region and the world,” he added.
A majority of the startups in the new cohort are building for global markets and targeting audiences outside their headquarters. Nearly half of them are present in the US and European markets, Sequoia said.
Founders in Surge’s seventh cohort will complete a 16-week hybrid program to receive training and mentorship from industry veterans and legendary entrepreneurs.
Following is the list of startups available in the seventh cohort.
- attentive, a vertical SaaS company, is building a sales automation platform for US field service contractors. (Info Edge Ventures is a co-investor.)
- Ray builds a one-click payment solution that enables a smooth payment experience for merchants and shoppers in Southeast Asia. (Partech Partners is a co-investor.)
- Boxes runs 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 (MSPs) 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 on Slack and Microsoft Teams and provides seamless connectivity to backend ticketing tools such as Zendesk, Salesforce, and Freshdesk. (8VC is a co-investor.)
- gani uses AI to create custom videos on a large scale, allowing brands to build personal connections with their customers. (It also raised funds from Emergent Ventures.)
- Hatica aims to provide technical managers and leaders with the visibility and insights to help them build productive and healthy technical teams. (Kae Capital is an investor.)
- meta school says it makes it easy 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 3D illustrations, games, and designs. (Cocoon Capital and Entrepreneur First are co-investors.)
- Pratech brands plans to help new-age Indian consumers improve their quality of life through better home and health products.
- semaai builds a full-stack tech solution for the Indonesian agricultural sector. (Beenext is a co-investor.)
- TrueFoundry is a developer 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.)
- Unraveling 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 it aims to serve teenagers. (AC Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Ondine Capital and Y Combinator have also backed the startup.)
One startup in the cohort is currently in the stealth space, but has disclosed that it works in the travel space.
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