VC firm Sequoia’s, mentorship program for women entrepreneurs, Sequoia Spark is back for its second edition. The mentorship program that aims to inspire more women in India and Southeast Asia to become entrepreneurs has recently announced the participants for its second cohort.
The final list of 12 includes eight women founders from India and four women founders from South East Asia. The chosen women entrepreneurs come from a variety of industries which includes, health tech, climate tech, SaaS, B2B, Web3, consumer internet, and direct-to-consumer (D2C).
Mentorship takes Center stage
Sequoia Spark includes an equity-free fellowship and mentorship program as well as a series of learning sessions running through the year, open to all female founders who want access to domain knowledge and a wider community.
Entrepreneurs who have been shortlisted will be provided with mentoring and a $100 K equity-free grant as a part of the program. The women entrepreneurs will be given one on one mentorship from an experienced organization founder from one of Sequoia India's and Southeast Asia's portfolio companies.
According to Sequoia Capital, mentoring is truly an essential part that helps companies or organizations to develop a strong product and go-to-market strategy, which will eventually help them raise their first round of funding.
The mentors for the second edition of the program are Anshuman Singh from Scaler, Ashwini Asokan from Mad Street, ChaitanyaRamalingegowda from Wakefit, HandeCilingir from Insider, Siu Rui from Carousell, and YaminiBhat from Vymo. The shortlisted entrepreneurs will also be receiving mentorship from a senior Sequoia India and Southeast Asia investment advisor during the course of the program.
The entrepreneurs who have made up the list will also get the benefit to access some Surge sessions. They will receive mentorship in numerous fields such as hiring, technology, finance, legal, product, and marketing from Sequoia India and Southeast Asia portfolio experts.
The first cohort of Sequoia Spark included 20 female founders and 15 startups. Out of them, 10 start-ups raised seed and series funding from VCs and angel investors. After attending the Spark program, one of the startup companies was acquired by Wipro which raised $51 million.
The Chosen Ones for Second Cohort
Eight start-ups that have been shortlisted out of the 12 firms are based in India while the other four are based in Southeast Asia. The founders of these companies have ample experience in their respective fields, and have scaled up businesses in the past as well.
Let’s meet the companies and their founders.
Avataar
Founder:SaumyaMisra
Founded in: 2022
Sector:Consumertech
Avataar is a company that offers a wide range of skin treatment related products for both men and women that are technologically advanced, innovative, non-invasive. The firm’s ultimate goal is to satisfy customers with their products and treatment. Their products aim at changing the ‘avataar’ of any person making them confident for themselves.
BHyve
Founder:OmkarPandharkame, KetakiOgale, VihangMirkhelkar
Founded in: 2021
Sector:SaaS
Mumbai based BHyve is a knowledge management platform for other companies that work remotely. Its main aim is to enable workers to connect, learn, and become productive simultaneously. The remote workforce productivity focused company aims to increase productivity, decrease time spent looking for information, and enhance employee learning and engagement.
Hoop
Founder: Twinkle Uppal, Saharsh Agarwal
Founded in 2022
Sector:Healthtech
Hoop is a health & wellness digital first brand that targets the health and wellness of young people in India. TheGurugram based firm seeks the improvement of the health of every millennial and takes good care of them.
Jollee
Founder:Akriti Gupta
Founded in 2022
Sector:Consumertech
Gurugram based Jollee is a start-up that focuses on children’s clothing and essentials. It offers suggestions to the parents based on the requirements of their child.From daily essentials to clothing, books, toys and more, the platform offers handpicked and conscious products to consumers.
Mantys
Founder:Kriti Arora, Mudit Dangi
Founded in 2022
Sector:SaaS
Mantys is a SaaS startup that offers mid-market firms business planning and analytics solutions. The Bangalore based company enables businesses to track all of their data in real-time, notably financial and business metrics
Plodo
Founder:Eisha Srivastava
Founded in 2022
Sector: B2B
A distribution network called Plodo assists consumer businesses that focus on the digital space in India with the launch of their offline operations. Independent brands can connect to its platform and gain access to physical retail channels.
Teleport
Founder: Nikita Dresswala
Founded in 2022
Sector:Traveltech
Teleport’s ultimate goal is to make it easy and quick for customers to apply for travel visas. It makes paperwork requirements simpler and gives clients accurate information.
Zerocircle
Founder:Neha Jain
Founded in 2022
Sector: Biotech
Mumbai based Zerocircle assists brands that care about the environment in implementing low-carbon materials that are created from renewable resources like seaweed.
