Three years ago, pretty much to the day, we announced Surge to the world and invited founders across India and Southeast Asia to apply for the program. When we published that first blog post, Surge was still very much an idea in our minds. Six cycles later, we’ve evaluated over 10,000 companies, and the community has grown to 112 startups and 246 founders.
We couldn’t be more thrilled with the progress Surge startups have made, and how this community has come together as a supportive ‘circle of trust’ for founders as they continue to grow, learn and build together.
Today, we’re excited to announce the 20 startups that comprise our sixth cohort.
Surge 06 includes the largest number of software startups so far; more than half the startups in this cohort are building and providing cloud infrastructure, developer tools, data security and software as a service for global customers. As many products and services continue to move online, we’re starting to see greater diversity in the types of SaaS startups applying to and taking part in Surge. Notably, there are four cybersecurity companies in this cohort, each focused on a different aspect of security in response to society’s changing needs.
There’s also an exciting set of startups in FinTech, AgTech, e-commerce, DTC brands and Edtech in Surge 06 that have set out to solve a broad range of problems both regionally and across the world. Sixty percent of Surge 06 companies are building solutions for global markets from Day One.
This batch of startups is also geographically diverse. As with prior cohorts, 50% of companies are based in India, and for the very first time we have startups from Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan.
We continue to have an ‘open architecture’ approach at Surge, inviting co-investors to partner with our startups. Seventeen of them are coming into the program with institutional and angel co-investors, raising about $60 million in their Surge round from Surge and these co-investors.
We’re incredibly inspired by this diverse group of mission-driven founders, who are solving important problems in our region and across the world – from helping farmers improve their incomes and the overall quality of the agricultural supply chain, to democratising access to high-quality education, enhancing Internet and data security, and more.
We hope you are inspired by them too. To meet Surge 06 2022, click here.
