Sequoia

Spark Fellowship

The Sequoia Spark Fellowship aims to inspire more women in India and Southeast Asia to build companies by increasing their access to capital, mentorship, knowledge and network.

Meet the Mentors


Founder mentors

Julian Artopé

Founder & CEO, Zenyum

Ashwini Asokan

Founder & CEO, Mad Street Den

Yamini B

Co-founder & CEO, Vymo

Revant Bhate

Co-founder & CEO, Mosaic Wellness

Hande Cilingir

Co-founder & CEO, Insider

Jai Decosta

CEO, K12 Techno Services

Tamanna Dhamija

Co-founder, Convosight

Pranav Goel

Co-founder & CEO, Porter

Jessica Stephanie Jap

Co-founder & COO, Astro

Lalit Keshre

Co-founder & CEO, Groww

Shashank Mehta

Founder & CEO, The Whole Truth

Sameer Maheshwari

Founder & CEO, HealthKart

Tanushree Nagori

Co-founder, Doubtnut

Siu Rui Quek

Co-founder & CEO, Carousell

Chaitanya R

Co-founder, Wakefit

Grace Sai

Co-founder, Unravel Carbon

Miten Sampat

CRED

Prukalpa Sankar

Co-founder, Atlan

Anshuman Singh

Co-founder, Scaler

Akshay Singhal

Founder & CEO, Log9 Materials

Sequoia Mentors

Rohit Agarwal

Principal

Ashish Agrawal

Managing Director

Abheek Anand

Managing Director

Rajan Anandan

Managing Director

Mohit Bhatnagar

Managing Director

Sakshi Chopra

Managing Director

Kriti Gupta

Associate

Pushpak Kedia

Associate, Surge

Pieter Kemps

Surge Partner

Shivam Kumar

Associate

Shailesh Lakhani

Managing Director

Abhishek Mohan

Principal

Shreyas Nair

Vice President, Growth

Prachi Pawar

Associate

Mayank Porwal

Vice President

GV Ravishankar

Managing Director

Anandamoy Roychowdhary

Surge Partner

Shailendra Singh

Managing Director

Aaditya Sood

Venture Partner

Shraeyansh Thakur

Principal

Sequoia Specialists

Mohit Abraham

Chief Legal Officer

Payal Banerjee

Director & Head of Communications

Jynn Goh

Vice President, Human Capital

Ajey Gore

Operating Partner, Technology

Sandeep Kher

Director, Portfolio Finance

Saipriya Sarangan

Chief People Office

Shivani Maira Shankar

Vice President, Human Capital

Shweta Rajpal Kohli

Chief Public Policy Officer

Gayatri Yadav

Chief Marketing Officer

Common Questions

Sequoia Spark is a movement to inspire more women in India and Southeast Asia to become entrepreneurs. The four month long fellowship program includes a USD 100K equity-free grant and mentorship as well as a series of learning sessions & events, open to all female founders who want access to domain knowledge and a wider community.

In addition to the USD 100K grant, as a Sequoia Spark founder, you will get access mentorship from Sequoia India and Southeast Asia’s founders and specialists across human capital, marketing, product, legal, and finance teams. Each founder will also be mapped to an investment advisor who will work with founders through the duration of the program. 

To ensure that you can benefit and learn from Sequoia’s wider network, you will also get access to founder talks and deep-dive studio sessions that are part of the Spark program. 

Learn more about the fellowship here.

If selected for the program, you will spend structured 1:1 time over four months with a Sequoia investment advisor . In addition, you will get access mentorship from Sequoia India and Southeast Asia founders and Sequoia specialists across different disciplines. 

This will be a four month-long fellowship program that includes regular check-ins with your investment advisor and mentorship from a curated set of industry experts and leading founders, as well as access to Sequoia specialists across hiring, marketing, product, legal and finance.

The applications for the cohort 02 are now closed.

In addition to the fellowship, we’ll have a series of  sessions, both online and offline, open to all female founders and leaders who are interested to learn more about company-building. Follow us on social media for regular updates:

Twitter: @SequoiaIndiaSEA

Instagram: @sequoia_india and @sequoiasurge_id

LinkedIn: Sequoia India, Sequoia Southeast Asia and Sequoia Spark LinkedIn group

Yes. Like, Surge, the Sequoia Spark fellowship is open-architecture and we aim to collaborate with partners across the ecosystem. Seed funds, angels, VCs are welcome to participate.

As part of the fellowship grant, Sequoia Capital India/Southeast Asia will not take a stake/ownership in the company. We do expect the selected founders to commit to spending time and attending the sessions to make the best of the program.

While each cohort is for four months, the Sequoia Spark community is for life. You can continue to stay connected to your Spark network, attend events and benefit from peer/community learnings after the fellowship ends.

Selection to the Sequoia Spark program does not guarantee follow-on funding from Sequoia Capital India/Southeast Asia or Surge. 

Applications for cohort 02 are now closed. We will update the dates for cohort 03 shortly.

We are looking for incredible, missionary female founders who are leading recently-launched startups and are on a mission to create large-scale impact by solving hard problems across SaaS, FinTech, sustainability, climate tech, consumer tech, Web3, HealthTech, etc. for India and/or Southeast Asia markets.

The application deadline is 07th November, 2022 and the cohort launches in January 2023.

The Sequoia Spark program is specifically designed for early stage startups and is focused on empowering female founders with access to capital, mentorship knowledge, and networks to supercharge the early steps of their company building journey. We would love to see a business plan and your product/service details and thinking around GTM, even if you are yet to launch.

We are only accepting applications from full-time founders, or those about to start up, at this point.

We accept applications from full-time founders only. However, if you can commit to running your startup full-time by the time the cohort is in session, then you are welcome to apply.

Your application will be reviewed by a group of investment advisors. If shortlisted, we will set up a virtual meeting with you (the founder) and your co-founders. if any. We will select the final list of startups post the meetings. You can expect to hear from us within three weeks of your application, regardless of the status.

Not right away. But if you are selected for the Sequoia Spark fellowship, your company will have to be registered in order to receive the grant. 

You can apply if you are building for India and/or Southeast Asia markets. If selected for Spark 02, you are also required to be based out of India / Southeast Asia when the cohort kicks off in Jan 2023. We will be hosting a series of in-person meetups and sessions for Spark 02 to meet and connect with peers as well as the broader startup community, and being a part of these is critical for every founder in the cohort.

Yes, you definitely can. However, you need to be an equal (or majority) shareholder in the business. Please note that if selected, the program will only be open to you.

A single application is sufficient for the both of you since the form has provision to share details of your co-founder. Please go through the fields carefully and share all the relevant details of your co-founder.

You don’t need to have a co-founder to apply to Sequoia Spark. We hope that you will get to meet like-minded people through the Spark community so that you can learn and grow together.

You can expect to hear from us within three weeks of your application, regardless of the status.

Sequoia Spark does not charge any program fees. Given this is a grant, we don’t take any ownership/stake in the company either. You can expect to hear from us within three weeks of your application, regardless of the status.