Surge launches its seventh cohort of 15 Southeast Asian and Indian startups adopting bolder approaches

• One-third have at least one female founder, others 2nd/3rd time founders
• Till date, Surge startups have raised over US$1.7bil in follow-on funding

Surge, Sequoia India & Southeast Asia’s rapid scale-up program, has launched its seventh cohort, featuring 37 founders across 15 early-stage startups. 

Surge will invest up to US$3 million (RM13.4 million) of seed capital in the selected companies at the start of the program. An investor week is held at the end of the program, designed to help them raise more capital from a curated set of investors. Terms will be set by investors participating in the round.

Surge has grown fast over the past three years, and with the seventh cohort, the community now includes 281 founders from 127 startups across 16 sectors. Surge startups have also collectively raised over US$1.7 billion (RM7.6 billion) in follow-on funding, with over 60% from the first five cohorts raising their Series A and beyond.

Surge 07 founders are leveraging their expertise in technology and consumer insights to drive innovation in India, Southeast Asia and the world. This includes founders who are tackling climate change with the first AI-powered decarbonisation platform in Asia Pacific; helping people with no design experience create 3D animation anywhere in the world; allowing startups to build machine learning projects in minutes and days versus months; facilitating one-click checkouts in SEA; building Indonesia’s first fintech company for teenagers; building full-stack tech solutions for Indonesia’s agriculture sector; enabling the next 10 million developers to enter the Web3 space, and much more.

Nearly half of Surge 07 companies were pre-launch when Surge partnered with them. Some are second or third time founders, and others founded their startup right out of college. Many Surge 07 founders also have extensive experience in their sectors. The cohort includes the former CFO of Nykaa, Uber’s first engineers in India, software engineers who helped build Apache Hive, an aerospace engineer turned fintech founder, and machine learning engineers who worked on conversational AI at Facebook. What’s more, one-third of the startups in this cohort have at least one female founder.

“We continue to be deeply impressed by the ambition and diversity of ideas, as well as the calibre of founders with each cohort. Surge 07 is no exception. We have partnered with all of our companies at their earliest stage of company building, with nearly half of them still in pre launch at the start of our partnerships. Our founders bring with them a wealth of experience and creativity, and we believe that these dreamers, innovators and category creators have the potential to change the future of our region and the world,” said Rajan Anandan (pic), Managing Director, Sequoia India & Southeast Asia, and Surge.

Surge 07 is currently in progress and founders are going through a rigorous 16-week hybrid program. Past speakers and mentors in the program include Siu Rui Quek (Carousell), William Tanuwijaya (Tokopedia/GoTo), Chatri Sityodtong (ONE Championship) and Doug Leone (Sequoia Capital).

Founders are also increasingly targeting their business for a world stage. A majority of the companies are building for global markets from day one and targeting audiences beyond their headquarters. Nearly half have a presence in US and European markets. To learn more about Surge and find out more about each Surge 07 company, please click here.