First cohort of Sequoia Spark Fellowship for women entrepreneurs to kickstart this month

Sequoia Capital on Wednesday announced the first cohort of Sequoia Spark Fellowship - a $100K equity-free grant and mentorship programme - comprising 15 startups and 20 women entrepreneurs from India and Southeast Asia. 

It was started as a step to correct the gender imbalance in the startup ecosystem where startups with at least one woman founder make up for only 12 percent of venture-backed startups in India and 20 percent in ASEAN.

Sakshi Chopra, Managing Director of Sequoia India, said the cohort features India’s first women crypto founders Madhumitha Harishankar and Niveda Harishankar, who launched Nume Crypto this year.

Hailing from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Singapore, and UAE, the cohort has a mix of entrepreneurs building products across fintech, edtech, SaaS, and consumer internet sectors. 

“We were blown away by the ideas, intensity, and the passion of these applicants. Many have stellar backgrounds with deep industry experience and while some of the ideas were quite raw, the quality of those ideas were very strong. Selecting 15 startups was an incredibly hard process that took many months but we are very excited to see how this cohort shapes up,” Sakshi said.

The fellowship will cover the early cost of starting up and offer access to monthly mentorship sessions, select Surge sessions, and receive hands-on support from Sequoia India portfolio specialists, across hiring, legal, finance, product, technology, and marketing.

ALSO READ

Why this former Fireside Ventures associate decided to start D2C brand Hera in the femtech space

Sequoia India claims the programme has been carefully designed to help female founders in their pre-launch or pre-product-market fit stage to lay the foundations to build a strong company for the next 12 months. The founders have each been matched to a senior Sequoia India investment advisor and a seasoned startup founder from Sequoia Capital India’s portfolio for the same.

The selected startups are Airschool, Ascend Now, Early Steps Academy, Findeed, Finllect, Friz, Jify, Linecraft AI, Loop Panel, Milky Way AI, Nume Crypto, Rowy, Sribuu, The Nestery, and Stealth.