Sequoia’s Surge Launches Seventh Cohort Of 15 Startups, Eight Based Out Of India

Venture Capital firm Sequoia Capital’s accelerator and incubation programme Surge has launched its seventh cohort featuring 15 early stage startups from India and Southeast Asia. Out of the 15 startups, eight are based out of India.

“We’re blown away by the diversity of sectors and founders, the scale of their ambition and the depth of experience they bring to the table,” Sequoia Surge said in a blog post.

The programme’s first week concluded on Monday (August 22). The cohort consists of startups from various industries such as fintech, climate tech, Web3, SaaS, enterprisetech and more. Surge 07 will be a 16-week long programme, according to the blog post.

Sequoia had launched Surge in 2019, and has since held six cohorts featuring over 100 startups from India and Southeast Asia.

The early stage investor added that its total portfolio now includes 120+ startups from India and SEA operating across 16 sectors. Surge startups have collectively raised $1.7 Bn in follow-on funding rounds and more than 60% of the startups from Surge 01 to 05 have raised Series A and beyond.

Sequoia’s Surge is a 16-week program for early stage startups that pumps up to $1 Mn– $2 Mn in pre-seed and seed rounds. The VC firm has so far invested in over 70 startups in India and 50+ from SEA in a total of seven batches. It will announce Surge 08 in late 2022, for which registrations have already started.

While Surge 07 startups are likely to receive up to $1.5 Mn in funding from Sequoia, the VC firm recently announced that it would invest up to $3 Mn in seed to pre-Series A rounds of Indian and Southeast Asian startups starting with Surge 08.

Meet The 15 Startups From Sequoia Surge’s Seventh Cohort

Startup Name: Attentive
Founded In: April 2021
Founders: Rishabjit Singh, Sarthak Vijay, Shiva Dhawan

Headquarters: Delaware, US & Delhi NCR, India
Sector: Enterprisetech

Attentive is a vertical SaaS company that is building a sales automation platform for US-based outdoor services contractors. 

Startup Name: Beam
Founded In: August 2021
Founders: Mike Chinakrit Piamchon, Nattapat Chaimanowong, Win Vareekasem
Headquarters: Bangkok, Thailand
Sector: Enterprisetech

Beam is building a one-click checkout solution that enables a frictionless payment experience for sellers and shoppers in Southeast Asia.

Startup Name: Boxs
Founded In: May 2022
Founders: Satheesh Ramdass, Vikram Venkatesan
Headquarters: Chennai, India
Sector: Enterprisetech

Boxs is a design-to-build automation platform for architects, interior designers and construction companies.

Startup Name: BuyerAssist
Founded In: January 2021
Founders: Amit Dugar, Shankar Ganapathy, Shyam HN
Headquarters: San Francisco, US & Pune, India
Sector: Enterprisetech

BuyerAssist helps B2B revenue teams get enterprise deals and grow customer accounts using MSPs to align and collaborate effectively with their buyers.

Startup Name: ClearFeed
Founded In: March 2022
Founders: Ankit Jain, Lalit Indoria, Joydeep Sen Sarma
Headquarters: Bengaluru, India
Sector: Enterprisetech

ClearFeed is a communication and collaboration platform that uses AI models to enable natural language ticketing on Slack and Microsoft Teams, and provides seamless connectivity to backend ticketing tools like Zendesk, Salesforce and Freshdesk.

Startup Name: Gan
Founded In: March 2021
Founders: Suvrat Bhooshan
Headquarters: Delhi NCR, India
Sector: Consumer Internet

Gan allows users to personalise video creation and create custom videos at scale, helping brands to build personal connections with their customers.

Startup Name: Hatica
Founded In: June 2020
Founders: Haritabh Singh and Naomi Chopra
Headquarters: San Francisco, US & Delhi-NCR, India
Sector: Enterprisetech

An Inc42 find from June 2022, Hatica is a DevOps platform specialising in engineering operations, allows teams to get insights into workflow and productivity in real time.

Startup Name: Metaschool
Founded In: February 2022
Founders: Fatima Rizwan
Headquarters: Singapore
Sector: Blockchain

Metaschool is Web3 platform helping developers learn, build and ship dApps. Metaschool offers project tutorials designed to help developers start from the basics and eventually build projects, such as an NFT marketplace, a DAO for a specific community or a decentralised social media platform.

Startup Name: PixCap
Founded In: January 2022
Founders: CJ Looi, Cyril Nie
Headquarters: Singapore
Sector: Enterprisetech

PixCap is an animation platform that allows users with no design experience to create animations for 3D illustrations, games, and designs.

Startup Name: Pratech Brands
Founded In: October 2021
Founders: Anvi Shah, Neehar Modi, Sachin Parikh
Headquarters: Mumbai, India
Sector: Ecommerce

Pratech Brands is building a digital-first house of brands concerning consumer needs and building brands within wellness and lifestyle categories. 

Startup Name: Semaai
Founded In: April 2021
Founders: Abhishek Gupta, Gaurav Batra, Muhammad Yoga Anindito
Headquarters: Jakarta, Indonesia
Sector: Agritech

Semaai is addressing the pain points of the agriculture community. It offers an ecommerce platform for agri inputs, trading hubs for the broader agri outputs, a consultancy hub to understand the agricultural know-how, and other productivity tools for soil testing.

Startup Name: TrueFoundry
Founded In: June 2021
Founders: Abhishek Choudhary, Anuraag Gutgutia, Nikunj Bajaj
Headquarters: San Francisco, US & Benagluru, India
Sector: Enterprisetech

TrueFoundry is a developer platform that enables startups to deploy and monitor machine learning (ML) models by automating the repetitive parts of the ML pipeline around infrastructure and deployments, making it easier for data scientists and ML engineers to focus on more creative parts.

Startup Name: Unravel Carbon
Founded In: September 2021
Founders: Grace Sai, Marc Allen
Headquarters: Singapore
Sector: Climate Tech

Unravel Carbon is building a repository of carbon data in Asia so that companies can track and reduce their carbon emissions.

Startup Name: Whiz
Founded In: January 2022
Founders: Agnes Wirya Lie, Dominic Sumarli, Frederick Widjaja
Headquarters: Jakarta, Indonesia
Sector: Fintech

Whiz is an Indonesia-focussed fintech startup helping teenagers open their first financial account with an easy-to-use app and make purchases through a QR payments system that is widely accepted in Indonesia.

The Surge 07 cohort also features a stealth startup in the travel space.