SUMMARY
Surge’s third cohort will be flagged off on April 13 and will last up to August
Early-stage startups from India, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam will be a part of Surge 03
The applications for Surge 04 from September 2020 to January 2021 are also open
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With coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic, social distancing has become the new norm. In line with this, Sequoia Capital India has turned the third edition of its accelerator programme Surge into a completely virtual event. Surge 03 is scheduled to be held on April 13 and will host startups from India, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.
For the online accelerator programme of April, Sequoia India has assured that there would be no change in the benefits for startups or access to mentors. The Surge sessions with Sequoia portfolio founders and the VC’s partners will be designed to ensure inter-geo collaboration amongst founders and continue to foster a sense of community, even though the event is going to be held online. All the speaker sessions, office hour workshops and other mentoring sessions will be held remotely.
To turn the virtual accelerator programme into a success, Sequoia Capital India will be using several online tools. It has also invited the founders of the upcoming Surge 03 cohort to join the in-country sessions, which are set to be held in September.
Meanwhile, the applications for the Surge 04 remain open. The VC firm runs two batches per year, first March to July and the second from September to January. Early-stage startups from India and other Southeast Asian regions working in varied sectors — consumer internet, deep tech, enterprise software, healthcare technology, fintech, crypto or direct-to-consumer brands — can apply for the five-week-long programme.
At the end of every programme, Sequoia also conducts an investor week called UpSurge for startups in the cohort. The VC firm invites early-stage investors, angel investors, seed funds and other VC to invest in the companies. The startups are also allowed to wait it out and be a part of the UpSurge of the next batch.
The VC firm shortlists 15 to 20 startups for each cohort and provides a capital investment of $1 Mn to $2 Mn with participations from other investors. Sequoia Surge 02 comprised of 20 startups including the likes of Airalo, Bijak, Brick&Bolt, Classplus, Freewill, Hevo Data, InVideo, Juno, Klub, Log9 Materials, Quolum, Rheo TV, and Trell.
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