Sequoia To Connect Indian, SEA Startup Founders With Business Leaders

Venture capital (VC) firm Sequoia Capital has launched Pathfinders, a platform to connect early-stage startup founders from India and Southeast Asia with business experts who can help them succeed in new markets, with a strong focus on the US.

Pathfinders is a pro bono effort and is built for SaaS and other startups with global ambitions to help their founders connect with seasoned business leaders who can accelerate their company-building journey by enabling the development and execution of their go-to-market strategy, making key hires, thinking through design choices, and more, the VC firm said in a blog post.

It also said that Pathfinders will be moving to an app, which is now in the beta stage. The participating business leaders or the pathfinders on the platform can view a curated list of startups looking for support in their area of expertise, listen to their virtual pitches, and access a single-view portfolio management dashboard on the app.

Having scaled the platform over the last year, Sequoia said that it has onboarded 25 pathfinders on the platform who are veterans and experts in their respective fields, including from sales, product, marketing, tech, and finance.

Amit Singh, president of Palo Alto Networks; Oliver Jay, ex-CRO of Asana, Param Kalhon, CPO of UIPath; Prasanna Sankar, cofounder of Rippling; are among the selected pathfinders.

For these pathfinders, the platform Pathfinder represents an opportunity to invest in some of the most promising tech companies from India and Southeast Asia alongside Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia, the blog post said.

“The entire enterprise software market is being disrupted by next generation SaaS built using cloud, AI and mobile-first design principles. To succeed Indian disruptors need to understand the Western buyers, their needs and their users’ expectations clearly and design products that fit them effectively” said Palo Alto’s Singh.

“Pathfinders connects entrepreneurs with experienced operators living in these countries, who have built expertise over decades understanding Western buyers,” he added.

Sequoia said that the Pathfinders platform is one more step in the pursuit of its mission to help founders build legendary companies, from the idea to the IPO and beyond.

Sequoia India and Southeast Asia recently announced the close of a $2.85 Bn fund. Sequoia Capital has over 400 startups in its portfolio, including Indian startups Blinkit, Bounce, BYJU’S, Apna, CoinSwitch, among others.

Earlier this week, Inc42 reported that gold loan provider startup Rupeek was raising about $16 Mn in a fresh funding round from Sequoia Capital and other VC firms.

With the number of startups on the rise in the country, many industry veterans are taking up the responsibility to guide the startups. Recently, business and startup experts like T.N. Hari, Suruchi Maitra, and Pramath Sinha came together to launch Artha School of Entrepreneurship. It aims to address the issues faced by Indian startups in scaling up.