With an urge to support and represent the best up-and-coming founders; scrounging through diverse groups of college graduates, academics, and seasoned veterans; Surge, the rapid scale-up programme of Peak XV Partners, has launched its ninth cohort, comprising 32 founders across 13 startups. The ninth cohort has a deeptech and artificial intelligence (AI) focus. The cohort features companies engaged in advanced manufacturing, quantum computing, climate-tech, and health-tech.
Unlike previous cohorts, which only had startups from India and Southeast Asia, Surge’s ninth cohort includes two startups from Australia. Additionally, it includes seven from India and four from Southeast Asia.
The firm received about 4800 applications for Surge 09, the highest number of applications they have ever received, according to the company statement. Surge 09 is the venture capital firm’s first cohort since its rebranding from Sequoia India & Southeast Asia in June.
“As we start new company-building journeys with our Surge 09 founders, it is clear that we are witnessing the growth of AI and deeptech innovation, as well as the talent in these sectors emerging from Asia. After the rebranding, we now have a little more geographic flexibility. We have started spending more time in Australia; we’ll do a lot more there. Nothing changes in India, though,” said Rajan Anandan, managing director of Peak XV and Surge.
More about Surge 09 and the selected startups
Peak XV’s Surge offers company-building workshops and a global curriculum. Moreover, it offers up to $3 million in seed funding, and the support of a network of mentors and entrepreneurs. The programme’s objective is to provide mentorship and access to funding to early-stage startups in India, Southeast Asia, and now Australia.
The ninth cohort includes semiconductor companies Mindgrove and InCore Semiconductors; climate-tech startup Newtrace; deep-tech startup Ethereal Machines (a precision engineering component maker); travel-tech firm Elivaas; and AI platform ZeroK.
The cohort also includes Australian firm Relevance AI; a machine-learning startup that aims to help companies build an AI workforce that automates workflows with no code. Singapore-based Pix.ai, another member of the latest cohort, helps creators produce high-quality anime art with an AI-powered art generator. Open-source data infrastructure company Dozer; software developer Horizon Quantum Computing; employee engagement platform Mercu; codebase AI platform Stealth; and health tech firm Neurowyzr are other startups that are part of the Surge’s latest cohort.
With this, Surge has included more than 330 founders and over 140 startups across 16 sectors in less than five years. Since its launch in 2019, Surge startups have collectively raised around $2 billion in follow-on funding rounds.