Three Indonesian Startups Chosen in Surge, Sequoia's Acceleration Program

Surge, an accelerator program from Sequoia India, introduced three new startups from Indonesia that were part of their acceleration program in 2019.

Surge has now run two waves of acceleration programs. The second wave of Surge presents 20 startups from India and Southeast Asia, three of which are from Indonesia, namely: Story, Chilibeli, and Rukita.

Story itself is a platform that contains review lifestyle products to provide a reference for consumers. While Chilibeli is a platform social commerce which connects farmers with agents in marketing their products. While Rukita is a startup proptech who made the solution co-living for millennials in urban areas.

The previous wave, which was attended by 17 startups, Surge also chose two startups from Indonesia, namely: bobobox and Qoala.

In this program, Surge disburses US$1 million to US$2 million for each startup. The briefings provided include how to do funding, access to world-class mentors, talent development, to comparative studies to world technology centers.

"This program brings selected startups to study in cities such as Singapore, Bengaluru, Beijing, to Silicon Valley," said Director of Surge Rajan Anandan.

Sequoia Capital's name as venture capital is quite fragrant in Indonesia because of the large number of investments it has made to well-known startups such as Tokopedia, Gojek, or Traveloka. Surge's presence as an early startup accelerator has become Sequoia's new teeth.

However, according to Rajan, Sequoia has been active in supporting early startups for a long time. The reason they formed Surge is the large number of opportunities created by new startups which are often followed by the large number of obstacles that must be faced.

"Starting a company is very difficult, there are so many challenges like fundraising, hiring, build the company's foundation, find the right mentor, to roll out new funding. Raising funds is much more difficult when the company is still a seed," added Rajan.

Finished with the second wave, Surge announced that registration for the next wave of programs can be followed. Surge does not target the number of startups they will foster but emphasizes that the ideal startup is a reliable founder and an industry that still has large enough room to be explored.

The Surge acceleration program lasts for a week in four months. The system they use is also an open architecture, meaning that other investors can participate in the first round of Surge funding.

As in the report Google & Temasek 2019, Southeast Asia is still a sexy area for digital economy players. In the latest report, the internet-driven economy in Southeast Asia reached US$100 billion and that figure is predicted to continue to skyrocket to US$300 billion by 2025.

Vietnam and Indonesia are the main axis of this growth with growth rates reaching 40 percent per year.