Venture Capital firm Sequoia has announced the first cohort of its women entrepreneurship-focused Sequoia Spark Fellowship. The 15 selected startups include seven companies from India, seven from Southeast Asia and one from the Middle East.

The startups from India include The Nestery, a one-stop-shop for curated parenting and childcare products; Linecraft AI, an industrial IOT startup; Jify, which aims to empower employees with complete flexibility and access to their earnings in real-time; Findeed, which enables access to financial services for working class Indians; Early Steps which offers live online classes on 21st century essential subjects and Nume Crypto, which is focused on making crypto transactions simple and economical.

Sequoia Spark Fellowship was launched in July 2021, as a $100K equity-free grant plus mentorship program to help encourage women entrepreneurship in India and SEA. The program offers in-depth, hands-on mentorship to 15 women-led startups and capital to cover some of the early costs of starting up.

“We were blown away by the ideas, the intensity and the passion of these applicants. Many have stellar backgrounds with deep industry experience. 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 has shaped up. We even have our first women crypto founders!,” said Sakshi Chopra, MD, Sequoia India.

The program will kick off in December and these founders will take part in monthly mentorship sessions, have access to select Surge sessions, and receive hands-on support from Sequoia India portfolio specialists, across hiring, legal, finance, product, technology and marketing.

Each founder has also been matched to a senior Sequoia India investment advisor, and to a seasoned startup founder from Sequoia Capital India’s portfolio, who will mentor them over the next 12 months.

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