peakxv scale-up programme: Deep tech, AI, Quantum Ventures lead Peak XV Surge’s ninth cohort

Surge, Peak XV Partners’ scale-up programme for early-stage startups, has selected 13 ventures with a focus on deeptech, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and quantum computing as part of its ninth cohort.

This is the first cohort of Surge since Peak XV Partners came into existence after the split of erstwhile Sequoia Capital.

“We’ve kept our cohorts small… We want to focus on the absolute best founders that we can partner with in markets that are super interesting,” Rajan Anandan, managing director of Peak XV Partners, told ET.

For Surge, which has backed early-stage ventures from India, Singapore and Australia, the broader sectoral mix has shifted to more advanced technologies from segments such as consumer brands, vertical ecommerce and metaverse.

“What’s changed (with Surge over the years) is the nature of the companies,” Anandan said. “That’s really a reflection of what happens in the ecosystem. India is now beginning to see the emergence of Indian semiconductor companies. We have two of those in our cohort,” he said.

Surge has backed semiconductor startups InCore and Mindgrove in its latest unit.

Anandan also emphasised on the increased number of AI startups coming up.

“The ecosystem is changing… We have 20 AI companies in Surge,” he said. “In the last cohort we had three AI startups and in this cohort, we have four or five… We are at that phase where we are seeing AI and deeptech becoming a significant part of (Surge).”

The ninth unit of Surge include Ethereal Machines, ZeroK, Australia-based Relevance AI and Singapore-based Pix.ai in the deeptech manufacturing and AI space.

Since it was launched in 2019, Surge has backed over 140 startups that have collectively raised over $2 billion in follow-on funding post the programme. Some of the startups from previous Surge cohorts include Scaler Academy, Khatabook, Log 9 Materials, Plum, and Lambda Test.

When it began, the programme initially infused $1-2 million in each of the startups selected. It has since increased the investment ceiling to $3 million to widen the range of startups it can back.

In addition to seed capital, the Surge also organises company-building workshops, a global curriculum and support from a community of mentors and founders.

Some of the previous speakers and mentors at Surge include Tokopedia cofounder William Tanuwijaya, Stripe cofounder and CEO Patrick Collison, Zerodha founder and CEO Nitin Kamath, Cred founder Kunal Shah, Unacademy cofounder and CEO Gaurav Munjal, Info Edge founder and executive vice chairman Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, Meesho cofounder and CEO Vidit Aatrey, Freshdesk cofounder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham, Urban Company cofounder and CEO Abhiraj Singh Bhal, and Zomato chief executive Deepinder Goyal.

Surge’s ninth cohort is the second-smallest grouping in the programme after the eighth unit, which had 12 startups. In the seventh cohort, Surge had 15 startups, while in the sixth unit there were 20 ventures. The fifth cohort was Surge’s biggest with 23 startups, while there were 17 in its fourth unit, 15 in third, 20 in its second cohort, and 17 startups in the inaugural cohort.

Anandan said the venture capital fund wanted to keep the cohort size between 10-20 startups. “In one cohort we went to over 20 and we thought that was too high. It’s a design choice we’ve made and whether it’s 10, 11, 13, 14 or 16, we’re not worried about that. But not investing in competing companies at Surge is a factor,” he added.

Another famed startup accelerator, Y Combinator has seen India-based ventures in its cohorts come down over time. In its latest summer 2023 cohort, Y Combinator had only one Indian startup – CheqUPI. This was after the accelerator removed one of the startups from the latest batch for alleged irregularities. In the winter 2021 batch, Y Combinator had 43 startups out of India, followed by 31, 33, 18 and 11 ventures in subsequent cohorts up till the winter 2023 cohort.