Sequoia Surge launches sixth edition with 20 early-stage startups

Mumbai: Sequoia Capital India’s accelerator programme Surge has launched its sixth edition with the induction of 20 early-stage startups.

The accelerator will kick off on January 27, where founders will go through the 16-week virtual programme. The Surge platform offers startups scale-up support, along with $1-$2 million in capital from Sequoia, besides co-investments from other investors.

Since its launch three years ago, the programme has evaluated 10,000 companies.


With the sixth cohort, the Surge community now includes 246 founders from 112 startups across more than 15 sectors, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), developer tools, cybersecurity, ed-tech, direct-to-consumer (D2C), and fintech.

Startups in the current cohort have raised $60 million so far from Surge and co-investors. Co-investors in the latest batch include prominent venture capital funds and angel investors such as Omnivore Partners,

Better Capital, Blume, Kunal Shah, Jitendra Gupta, Deepak Anchala, Anupam Mittal, Gaurav, Ravish Naresh, Miten Sampat, Nipun Mehra among others. The current cohort in the Surge programme includes entrants from new markets like Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan. About 65% of companies from the first four cohorts have raised follow-on funding.

“The exceptional calibre and talent displayed by the founders of each new Surge cohort continue to humble us,” said Rajan Anandan, managing director at Surge & Sequoia India said in a statement.

“Every founder brings with them the kind of bold innovation and purpose the world needs to solve some of the most pressing problems today,” Anandan said. “Many of our companies are building strong, digital foundations that are opening pathways to international markets.”

Past speakers and mentors in the programme included founders like Ankiti Bose (Zilingo), Ashwini Asokan (vue.ai/Mad Street Den), Binny Bansal (Flipkart), Byju Raveendran (founder Byju’s), Girish Mathrubootham (Freshworks), Kunal Shah (Cred), Nithin Kamath (Zerodha), and Vidit Aatrey (Meesho).