Venture capital firm Sequoia India has received a commitment of $1.35 billion from Sequoia’s Limited Partners for two new funds, a $525 million venture fund and a $825 million growth fund. With these, Sequoia India will continue to invest across India and SEA.
In a blog post, Shailendra J. Singh, managing director, Sequoia Capital India and SEA, said, “The start-up ecosystem in both India and SEA has come a very long way in the last few years; the market gets deeper and the crop of founders, and their achievements, becomes more impressive each year. The combined GDP of India and SEA is expected to cross $14T and the number of mobile internet users will likely cross 1.5 billion by 2030.”
Addressing the COVID-19 impact Singh added, “This year in particular has been difficult for many of us – for founders, employees, investors, and for society at large. The Covid-19 pandemic is raging on and we’re in an unprecedented humanitarian and economic crisis. It has also been a time of reflection."
Sequoia believes that startup ecosystem has arrived at a fork in the road and highlighted that markets are deepening and the tech talent that exist in the region is formidable. The blog emphasized the importance of building products that can compete globally on quality, and not just on price and added, “We need more unique and innovative startups, pursuing original ideas in addition to “X of Y” business models.”
Over the years, Sequoia’s India and SEA arm has backed 11 unicorns in India and Southeast Asia. The VC firm has made some massive bets on star startups which includes ed-tech player Byju’s that recently entered the decacorn club with a valuation of $10.5 billion, cloud data protection company Druva, food-tech player Zomato, ride-hailing giant GoJek, fintech startup PineLabs, fintech firm RazorPay and online learning player Unacademy.
Painting a paltrier of future Singh said, “From our vantage point, the future of our region will be shaped by those few founders who are resolutely committed to building enduring companies with unshakable foundations. It will take a handful of exceptional founders to show us the way, to shine the light for others to follow”.
First Published: Jul 7, 2020 6:57 PM IST
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