Peak XV's Surge 10 Cohort: Spotlight on AI and Fintech Startups

Meet The 14 Startups From Peak XV's 'Surge 10'

The Surge 10 programme will run from October 2024 to February 2025, featuring a mix of in-person and online sessions and events Peak XV Partners has announced the list of the startups selected for the 10th cohort of Surge, the venture capital firm's seed stage platform to back early stage startups. Peak XV has selected 14 startups under this cohort. Each startup can receive up to $3 Mn in seed funding. The cohort focuses on sectors such as AI, developer tools, consumer brands, next-generation fintech, and healthcare. Beside India, the selected startups are from various countries like Singapore, the Philippines, China, the UAE, Australia, the UK, and the US. The founders of the selected startups will receive full-stack support and dedicated partnership from the Surge investment team and the operating team, including hiring, product, tech and marketing, the venture capital firm said in a statement. The programme claims to offer resources worth over $2 Mn, including cloud storage, marketing tools, software, services and more. Overall, Peak XV, which is a prominent investor in the Indian startup ecosystem, has supported over 140 startups via the Surge programme. Scaler Academy, Khatabook, Log9 Materials and Plum are among some of the popular startups from the past cohorts. "The Surge 10 programme will run from October 2024 to February 2025, featuring a mix of in-person and online sessions and events focused on founder development, go-to-market strategies, product, sales refinement, brand building and more," Peak XV said in a statement. Speaking about the new cohort, Peak XV MD Rajan Anandan highlighted the focus on AI and said that all six startups selected for Surge 10 are AI application companies. "... three are vertical AI companies, one is enterprise AI company and two are prosumer companies," he said. "Besides, there are two developer tool companies, four consumer companies, two consumer brands, two offline healthcare special companies, and two fintech companies," he added. Rajan also pointed out that the programme has selected an offline healthcare company for the first time. Both in terms of geography and sectors, this is the most diverse cohort, he said. Now, let's take a look at the startups selected for the cohort. Ambak is a fintech platform that connects homebuyers and distributors with lending partners. The startup aims to revolutionise the home loan industry in India by providing transparency, efficiency, and security to both customers and home loan distributors. Brainfish is an AI-powered customer support platform for online businesses. The Health Factory is a health focused packaged baked goods brand that aims to transform bread consumption in India with offerings including high-protein, vegan, and zero-maida (refined flour) breads. OrbitShift is an AI-native sales operating system that claims to accelerate enterprise sales motions with account insights, actionable recommendations, RFP/ RFI response generation, and targeted content generation. SalarySe is a fintech startup that aims to revolutionise how India's 100 Mn salaried employees manage their finances. By leveraging the growing credit-on-UPI ecosystem, SalarySe enables users to spend, save, invest, and plan their salaries efficiently, helping alleviate financial stress. Tailcall's application programming interface (API) platform claims to improve developer productivity, reduce infrastructural complexity, and save costs. Wobot AI is an AI-based integrated video analytics solution which offers vision base process compliance by instilling AI SaaS tools into existing CCTV cameras. It intends to help organisations in the food, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, and pharma industry to reduce the cost of monitoring and risk of non-compliance. Stealth A specialty healthcare startup currently operating in stealth mode. Amaani offers beauty and wellness products. Its flagship brand AÏZA is a premium skincare and haircare inspired by the Middle East's rich ingredients and rituals. Auquan is an AI innovator automating deep work in financial services. It claims to liberate finance industry professionals from time-consuming manual tasks so they can focus on higher-value work and make faster, more informed strategic decisions. Clout Kitchen is a consumer AI startup that creates interactive experiences for gaming and pop culture. Dezy aims to redefine the dental care experience by bringing together consumer convenience, technology, and dental expertise. Dubbing AI claims to enhance audience engagement through immersive role-playing and voice transformations, improving streaming presence and communication in virtual settings, all in real time. Parseable is an open-source, cloud-based platform designed for the modern cloud-native ecosystem, enabling developers to efficiently store and manage logs while providing powerful log analytics capabilities.

Peak XV's Surge selects 14 startups for tenth cohort; focuses on AI, financial services

"In this cohort, we have companies from India, Southeast Asia, Australia, China, the UK, and the US. We also have our first company from the Middle East... In our last cohort, we had a lot of deeptech and semiconductor companies. When you combine that with the current cohort, it's a representation of where the Indian startup ecosystem is today -- broad-based innovation across sectors, which is unique to India," said Anandan.Surge, Peak XV's programme for early-stage startups, has selected 14 startups for its tenth cohort, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), financial services, consumer sectors and healthcare. Rajan Anandan, managing director of Peak XV, told ET that this is Surge's most broad-based cohort, both geographically and across sectors. This also marks Surge's second cohort since Peak XV Partners was formed following the split from Sequoia Capital. The tenth cohort includes companies like Brainfish, Auquan, Dubbing AI, Orbitshift, Ambak, Parseable, SalarySe, and Wobot AI in the AI and financial services space. Other startups include Amaani, Clout Kitchen, Dezy, The Health Factory, Tailcall, and a stealth-mode healthcare startup. "In this cohort, we have companies from India, Southeast Asia, Australia, China, the UK, and the US. We also have our first company from the Middle East... In our last cohort, we had a lot of deeptech and semiconductor companies. When you combine that with the current cohort, it's a representation of where the Indian startup ecosystem is today -- broad-based innovation across sectors, which is unique to India," said Anandan. In its ninth cohort, Surge had backed 13 ventures focused on deeptech, AI, advanced manufacturing, and quantum computing. Since its launch in 2019, Surge has supported over 150 startups across 17 sectors. Notable startups backed by Surge over the years include InCore, Mindgrove, Ethereal Machines, Scaler Academy, Khatabook, Log 9 Materials, Plum, and Lambda Test. Initially, Surge invested $1-2 million per startup but has since raised the ceiling to $3 million, allowing for a broader range of companies to participate. "One of the design choices that we made at Surge is to have small cohorts. Our cohorts will go from 10 to 20. We do not have a hard and fast rule that there needs to be 10 or 15 or 20. In general, we want to partner with the best founders that we can find in sectors that we think are very interesting," Anandan added. In addition to receiving up to $3 million in seed funding, founders benefit from support and guidance from the Surge investment and operating teams, covering areas such as hiring, product development, tech, and marketing. The programme also offers company-building workshops and mentorship. The Surge 10 programme will run from October 2024 to February 2025. Past speakers and mentors at Surge include Tokopedia cofounder William Tanuwijaya, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Zerodha CEO Nitin Kamath, Cred founder Kunal Shah, Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal, Info Edge founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, Meesho CEO Vidit Aatrey, Freshdesk CEO Girish Mathrubootham, Urban Company CEO Abhiraj Singh Bhal, and Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal. According to Anandan, Surge prioritises two factors when selecting startups: the calibre of the founding team and their understanding of the problem they aim to solve. Also, it focuses on the market opportunity, which is also crucial for building large-scale businesses. Surge companies have collectively raised over $2 billion in follow-on funding post the programme, and more than 75% of startups from the first five cohorts have secured series A rounds, Anandan noted. "There has never been a better time to be starting up a company in India and to be an early-stage investor in India," said Anandan.