Semaai and Whiz Become Local Startups Chosen in the 7th Surge Cohort

Surge, as the accelerator program created by Sequoia Southeast Asia and India officially announced its seventh cohort, which was attended by 15 early-stage startups, involving 37 founder. There were two startups from Indonesia who were selected to join, namely Semaai and Whiz.

Over the past three years, Surge has progressed rapidly, including strengthen commitment by increasing the disbursement of funds for its early-stage startups. Previously they gave seed funding in the range of $1 million - $2 million, now increased to $3 million.

To date, the Surge community has overshadowed 281 founder of 127 startups in 16 sectors. Surge startups have raised a collective funding of more than IDR 25,2 trillion ($1,7 billion), with more than 60% of companies from its first five cohorts raising series A funding and beyond.

For founder today aims their business for the world stage. The majority of these companies are building from scratch for global markets and target audiences outside of their home market, nearly half having a presence in the US and European markets.

Some founder those involved already have experience, such as the former CFO of Nykaa, Uber's first engineer in India, the technician who helped develop Apache Hive, and so on. In addition, a third of the startups in this cohort have at least one founder woman.

Rajan Anandan, Managing Director of Sequoia India & Southeast Asia and Surge expressed deep admiration for the ambition and diversity of the ideas, as well as the caliber of the founder from every cohort in the Surge program, Surge 07 is no exception.

"We have partnered with all of these companies in the earliest stages of company development, with nearly half still in the pre-launch stage at the time of initiating the partnership. founder we bring their vast experience and creativity, and we believe that the dreamers, innovators and builders of this category have the potential to change the future of the region and the world,” he said.

Indonesian startups in the Surge program

Indonesia itself is known to be one of the countries targeted by this accelerator program. In each cohort, there is at least one startup from Indonesia as a representative. First started in March 2019, Bobobox and Qoala joined forces to represent Indonesia. Followed by Bobobox and Qoala.

In the last three cohorts, there are BukuKas, Hangry, CoLearn, Otoklix, Durianpay, Bukugaji/Vara, and Rara Delivery. In this seventh cohort, two startups from Indonesia joined, namely Semaai and Whiz.

Semaai is a startup agritechwhich develops solutions to address such systemic problems in industry by offering a comprehensive platform for the farming community, with an initial focus on agricultural inputs, such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and farm implements.

Not long ago the company has also announced early stage funding led by Surge, followed by Beenext and a number of angel investors, like Nipun Mehra (Ula), Harshet Lunani (Qoala), and Prashant Pawar (Houlihan Lokey).

The agricultural sector in the digital startup ecosystem in Indonesia itself is increasingly showing extraordinary potential. Even during the pandemic, some services related to the cultivation business are gaining tremendous traction, some of which have become soonicorn such as Tanihub, Eden Farm, Aruna, and eFishery.

Meanwhile, Whiz is a company fintech which focuses its services on young people in Indonesia. The startup, led by Agnes Wirya Lie, Dominic Sumarli, and Frederick Widjaja, allows teens to open their first financial account with an easy-to-use application, make purchases through the QR payment system that is widely accepted in Indonesia, and learn about budgeting and savings.

In the midst of intense competition in the fintech realm, the solutions offered by Whiz open up space for a more ordinary market to be exposed to financial literacy as early as possible. Some applications that have already launched such as my finances, Sribuu, Pay OK, PINA, Finoo, Moni, Xettle, Finku, New (Fazz Financial Group). Some of them have also won the trust of investors in the form of obtaining fresh funds.

Currently, Semaai and Whiz are undergoing a strict 16-week hybrid program. Surge 07 also features speakers and mentors who have previously been involved in this program including Siu Rui Quek (Carousell), William Tanuwijaya (Tokopedia/GoTo), Chatri Sityodtong (ONE Championship) and Doug Leone (Sequoia Capital).

Basically, incubator and accelerator programs that exist today offer convenience for founders in conducting business escalation. Based on the results of research conducted DailySocial.id, as of 2021, there are approx. 17 active incubator and/or accelerator programs open batch for new startups.