Thailand
Three Indonesian start-ups enroll in Sequoia Capital acceleration program
Sequoia Capital India has chosen 15 start-ups from Southeast Asia and India to participate in its third acceleration program, Surge 03.
Three of the 15 are Indonesia-based early-stage start-ups, namely a bookkeeping application for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) BukuKas, edtech platform CoLearn and cloud kitchen service Hangry.
Meanwhile, the other start-ups are from India, Singapore and Vietnam, with businesses in the software as a service (SaaS) sector as well as development tools, education, health and food and beverages.
Surge and Sequoia Capital India managing director Rajan Anandan said in a written statement on Monday that the capital firm had been working with start-ups from Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam in two of its previous cohort programs.
“The start-ups ecosystem in Southeast Asia is growing rapidly along with the development of its digital and mobile first economy,” he said. “We believe it’s important to support these founders both in their success and during these difficult times.”
Sequoia reported it had received increasing applications from Southeast Asian start-ups, especially in the business-to-business sector, consumer technology and financial services.
The Surge 03 cohort program started on April 13 and will roll out for 16 weeks with capacity-building activities in recruitment and marketing, among other fields, from global founder and investors. Each participant is also going to receive between US$1 million and $2 million funding in the first round of the program to kick-start their companies.
“The Surge program has been designed as an ‘open architecture’ and we invite other investors to join the first Surge round at the start of the program,” the statement reads.
Through the Surge, 80 percent of the participating start-ups received funding from institutional co-investors and almost half of the start-ups also have angel investors. The Surge 03 program has booked more than $39 million in total funding.
Start-ups that had finished the previous round of the Surge program collectively raised more than $250 million from their next rounds of funding from more than 35 institutional investors. The start-ups included Bobobox and Chilibeli from Indonesia, Zenyum from Singapore and Telio from Vietnam.
Established in March 2019, Surge has become a community with more than 110 founders and 52 start-ups from across six countries. The Surge 04 cohort program, which will start in September, is now open for registration.
Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/04/28/three-indonesian-start-ups-enroll-in-sequoia-capital-acceleration-program.html