Welcome to Surge, a rapid scale-up program for startups in India and Southeast Asia.
Surge combines $1 million to $2 million of seed capital with company-building workshops, global immersion trips and support from a community of exceptional founders.
Our Goal:
To supercharge your startup. And give you an unfair advantage, right out of the gate.
Meet our Mentors
Latest From Our Blog
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Classplus: Amp up your customer’s superpowers
Tutors aren’t just teachers – they’re also micro-entrepreneurs with their own brand and customers. Surge 02 2019 startup Classplus recognised this, and built an app for India’s vast population of hyperlocal tuition centres. The mobile SaaS platform enables tutors to handle payments, communication, online assessments and more on an app they can brand as their own. Classplus cofounder Mukul Rustagi talks about how a deep understanding of your customer’s point of differentiation helps drive critical choices on product strategy & design.
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Making Biryani and the Art of Appetizing OKRs
"Your people should be celebrated for making biryani, not for hitting numbers... If everything becomes metrics, there's no joy in the company". Speaking at Surge 02 2019 in San Francisco, Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham advises founders to find the 'biryani' that can power their business and drive growth, by encouraging employees to shine in their roles.
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Finding Happiness as a Founder
"I think when you have a much bigger goal, then these crises just pass." – CRED founder and Surge mentor Kunal Shah advises the Surge 03 2020 cohort that rather than chasing happiness, founders should shift their focus to creating new things in a bid to discover "never-ending joy".
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Chilibeli: Empowering Women Through Social Commerce
Earning extra income while helping their neighbors get fresh produce at affordable prices - that’s what many Indonesian women are doing with the help of Surge 02 2019 startup, Chilibeli. Co-founder Alex Feng speaks to Surge’s Rajan Anandan on how the social commerce platform empowers women to become micro-entrepreneurs, all while giving them an app to compile, order and distribute fresh produce to fellow Indonesians.
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How Obsession, Not Passion, Helped Bill Gates Succeed
Obsession is a key trait that’s common to founders who’ve succeeded in their mission and made it big. Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz speaks to Surge 02 founders in San Francisco, and recalls the lengths Bill Gates would go to during his early Microsoft days to cut out anything that might distract him from his business.
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Sell the Problem, Not Just the Solution
"If you sell the solution, people will fight you" – Sequoia Capital's James Buckhouse speaks to the Surge 02 cohort in San Francisco and weighs in on why selling a problem instead of a solution can be a more effective way to convert people into customers.
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Time vs. Features and How Founders Need to Pick One
"You're either driven by time or by features" – when it comes to engineering planning, Sequoia Capital’s Anandamoy Roychowdhary says it’s important for founders to pick just one of these factors to focus on.
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Why ‘Uptime’ Should Be A Business Metric
Reliability should be a business metric, and not just an engineering one – Gojek’s Sidu Ponnappa tells founders how tracking and reporting uptime can actually lead to a more meaningful understanding of your product and increase business efficiency.
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Architect Your Business Like A Product
"Think about architecting the business side of your company the same way you are architecting the product side of your company". Sequoia's Doug Leone advises founders on the importance of selecting the right investors and board members for their startup.