“Half of the startups in Surge’s eighth cohort have at least one female founder. Surge 08 also includes two health tech companies using AI to improve insurance and medical imaging, two climate-tech companies, a metaverse gaming platform for GenZ, an AI company that has worked with NASA, as well as three exciting consumer companies that are building new-age brands in the home decor, food and wedding sectors,” the venture firm said in a statement.
Sequoia India & Southeast Asia’s rapid scale-up programme for early-stage startups, Surge, has launched its eighth cohort, featuring 30 founders across 12 companies. These include startups that are building futuristic products across climate tech, artificial intelligence, the Metaverse, digital health, new consumer brands and new models of e-commerce.
Since its launch in 2019, the accelerator has helped its participating startups raise over USD 2 billion in follow-on funding from Surge and other co-investors, Sequoia said in a press release.
“Surge 08 founders are building next-gen products and businesses that have the potential to revolutionise their sectors over the next decade. These diverse set of founders each bring with them unique experiences and expertise to create ambitious and differentiated products and platforms to the problems they are tackling – and we are excited to be a part of their early company-building journeys,” said Rajan Anandan, the managing director of Sequoia India & Southeast Asia, and Surge.
50% of startups in latest cohort with a female founder
“Half of the startups in Surge’s eighth cohort have at least one female founder, Surge 08 also includes two health tech companies using AI to improve insurance and medical imaging, two climate-tech companies, a metaverse gaming platform for GenZ, an AI company that has worked with NASA, as well as three exciting consumer companies that are building new-age brands in the home decor, food and wedding sectors,” the venture firm said in a statement.
The Surge programme has backed over 300 founders across 130 startups in 16 sectors till date. While it initially wrote cheques of between $1 million and $2 million each in startups, it has since increased the backing amount to up to $3 million. Some noteworthy startups from earlier Surge cohorts include Scaler Academy, Khatabook, Locad, Classplus, Plum and Bijak.
Eighth cohort smallest, so far
The current cohort is its smallest yet. The accelerator programme had backed 15 startups in its seventh cohort, 20 in its sixth cohort, 23 in its fifth and 17 — the largest cohort, so far — in its fourth, 15 in its third, 20 in its second and 17 in its very first cohort in 2019.
Surge combines up to USD 3 million of seed capital with company-building workshops, a global curriculum and support from a community of mentors and founders. The programme’s goal is to supercharge early-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia and give founders an unfair advantage, right out of the gate, Sequoia said in its press note.
The latest eighth cohort is currently in progress and the founders are going through a 16-week hybrid programme focused on company building. The past speakers and mentors in the programme include Sanjeev Bikchandani (InfoEdge), Girish Mathrubootham (Freshworks), Kunal Shah (CRED), Amrish Rau (Pinelabs), Abhiraj Singh Bhal (Urban Company), Kunal Bahl (Snapdeal), Yamini Bhat (Vymo), Doug Leone (Sequoia Capital), Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Paytm), Ashwini Asokan (vue.ai/Mad Street Den), Deepinder Goyal (Zomato), Nithin Kamath (Zerodha), and Vidit Aatrey (Meesho).
Profile of 12 startups in eighth cohort
Here is a brief profile of 12 startups which have made it to Surge’s eighth cohort:
First Published: Mar 1, 2023 6:42 AM IST
