Sequoia's Surge Picks 17 Startups For Its Fourth Cohort, Half Of Them SaaS-BasedSurge 04 startups have collectively bagged $45.35 million in their Surge round from both Surge and co-investors

Venture Capital firm Sequoia Capital on Wednesday announced the names of 17 startups that will receive early-stage funding under its fourth cohort Sequoia Surge programme. Surge 4, which kicked off on November 19, comprises startups across a wide range of sectors including edtech, fintech, SME tech, dev tools, consumer, healthtech and B2B marketplaces.

Of the 17 startups picked, half of them are SaaS- based and 11 of them are building for global or regional markets.

Surge 04 startups are headquartered in India, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and—for the first time since the launch of the program—Australia.

Surge 04 startups have collectively bagged $45.35 million in their Surge round from both Surge and co-investors.

Within two years of its launch, Surge has evolved into an international community of over 150 founders spread across the globe.

With this programme founders receive early investment of $1 million to $2 million to start hiring and building their product right away. Apart from this founders are also part of company-building workshops to help them grow better.

Commenting on the announcement, Rajan Anandan, managing director, Sequoia Capital India LLP, said, "Surge 04 has an incredibly talented and determined group of founders we're proud to partner with. These are founders who have shown the courage to start up and persevere through an extremely challenging year. This cohort is a reflection of how the region's startup ecosystem will look and think for the next few years – possibly impacting entire economies. Businesses going beyond home markets, thinking digital first, and leveraging technology to solve problems at scale for industries around the world. It's incredible to be a part of this growth story."

Like Surge 03, Surge 04 will run online.

Here is the list of startups

Aampe - Launched in August 2020, Aampe turns customer communication into a retention growth engine.

Epsilo - Founded in July 2019 by Quang Tran and Hang Pham, this SaaS company helps e-commerce marketers and category managers deliver effective advertising operations across the leading online retail platforms in Southeast Asia.

Hashnode - Launched by Sandeep Panda and Syed Fazle Rahman in June 2020, Hashnode is a blogging platform that helps developers and teams start blogs and share them with the broader developer community.

Kyt - Founded by Bhavik Rathod and Tripti Ahuja in September this year, Kyt is an online-first global academy focussing on extracurricular learning for children.

LambdaTest - Asad Khan and Jay Singh founded LambdaTest in April last year. The startup is a testing infrastructure company which allows users and developers to run both manual and automated tests on their websites and web apps on over 2,000 different browsers, browser versions and operating system environments.

Let's Dive - Founded by Nitesh Agrawal and Om Prakash Shanmugam, the startup provides a social space for remote teams to build their culture through fostering better human connections.

Mod.io - Launched in March last year by Scott Reismanis and Patrick Sotiriou, this startup provides service that helps game developers launch in-game, platform-agnostic user-generated content (UGC) communities.

Otoklix - Founded by Martin Reyhan Suryohusodo, Joseph Alexander Ananto and Benny Sutedjo in 2019, the startup is helping to digitise Indonesia's automotive aftermarket sector by providing online to offline solutions for car services.

PagarBook - Launched last December, the startup founded by Adarsh Kumar, Arya Adarsha Gautam and Rupesh Kumar Mishra is a mobile-first payroll and workforce management app that aims to digitise human capital management for SMEs in India.

Plum - Launched this year in March, the startup is an employee insurance provider

Richpanel - Launched by Amit RG and GDJ Dorai in 2019, the startup is a customer service platform, purpose-built for e-commerce merchants to deliver a buying experience better than leading online retail sites

Shipsy - Founded by Dhruv Agrawal and Soham Chokshi in August 2015, the startup is an enterprise SaaS company that helps its customers manage their end-to-end logistics across multiple modes like ocean, air and road transportation.

Studyroom - Launched by Ashish Ranjan and Suhail Abidi last year, the startup is an EdTech platform that helps students learn better by empowering educators to create customised learning experiences for them.

Tazapay - This startup founded by Arul Kumaravel, Rahul Shinghal and Saroj Mishra is a cloud-based trade management platform for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to conduct cross-border commerce safely.