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Sequoia India and Sequoia Southeast Asia have collectively raised $2.85 billion across a set of funds, including India venture and growth funds and an $850 million Southeast Asian fund.
This fundraise comes at a time when markets are starting to cool after a very long bull run.
“The new funds will bolster our mission to help daring founders to build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond. At Sequoia India and Southeast Asia, we intend to double down on our efforts to help founders build healthy companies that will endure,” the firm said in a statement.
Sequoia operates multiple programs in the region including Surge, a 16-week program of early stage start-ups that was launched in 2019 and has grown to a community of 246 founders from 112 start-ups across more than 15 sectors. Last year, the firm launched Sequoia Spark, a fellowship for female founders, and Sequoia Build, program for growth stage start-ups looking to scale sustainably.
“The start-up and venture capital ecosystem in India and Southeast Asia has made great strides in the last decade and will continue to mature. Last year, India emerged as the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world, after the US and China. Southeast Asia, meanwhile, is on track to become a $1 trillion digital economy by 2030,” the firm added.
Sequoia’s India portfolio includes companies like 1MG, BharatPe, Blinkit (formerly Grofers), Byju’s, Cars24, Coinswitch Kuber, and CRED among others. Across Sequoia India and SEA portfolio, its eight portfolio companies have gone public in the last year including the likes of Zomato, Freshworks, and Nykaa.
Recently, multiple Sequoia portfolio companies have been in middle of corporate governance investigations. B2B fashion e-commerce platform Zilingo, witnessed an internal probe into the company’s financials and accounting practices. Zilingo CEO Ankiti Bose was also ousted amid this investigation. Similarly, BharatPe’s former MD and co-founder Ashneer Grover’s family and relatives have been accused of engaging in “extensive misappropriation of company funds” by the BharatPe board.
Further, Income Tax Department conducted raids on Thane-based construction marketplace Infra.Market. The search operation revealed evidence of bogus purchases, huge unaccounted cash expenditure and accommodation entries aggregating to over ₹400 crore.
In a statement released on Sunday (April 17), Team Sequoia India and Southeast Asia said, “In investments made at seed or early-stage there is hardly a business to diligence. Even at a later stage, investors can face negative surprises, post-investment, if there is wilful fraud and intent.”
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