Sequoia raises $2.85b for India, Southeast Asia

The vintage comprises USD 2bn for India venture and growth funds and USD 850m for Southeast Asia, according to a statement. Sequoia previously addressed both geographies together. It last came to market in 2020 and raised USD 1.35bn – a venture fund of USD 525m and a growth vehicle of USD 825m.

The firm launched its India operation in 2006, raising a debut fund of USD 400m. Fund IV, which started out at USD 530m and was later upsized to USD 850m, was the first to include Southeast Asia.

There are also three standalone programs that operate across both geographies: early-stage accelerator Surge, female founder-focused Spark, and sustainability-driven Build. To date, Surge is the only one to raise a fund in addition to providing grants and industry expertise. The most recent iteration closed on USD 195m last year.

Sequoia noted that the region’s start-up ecosystem has grown rapidly in the last decade, thanks to rising digital adoption and household incomes. Last year, India became the third-largest ecosystem globally, after the US and China. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia is on track to become a USD 1trn digital economy by 2030.

The Southeast Asia vehicle, SEA Fund I, will participate in seed, Series A, and growth-stage rounds, deployed by a dedicated team that now comprises more than 40 people across 12 nationalities.

“Ten years ago, we signed a lease for a small room in a quiet building in Singapore to help our portfolio companies expand into Southeast Asia. As our team spent more time in the region, we started to discover a fledgling tech ecosystem that showed many of the same early signs of growth we had seen in markets such as India and China before,” Sequoia said in a separate statement.

“We met bold young founders brimming with ideas and ambition, consumers who were raring to use digital products, and businesses that were starting to rapidly adopt software.”

The firm’s Southeast Asia portfolio includes ride-hailing platform turned super app Gojek, e-commerce player Tokopedia, and travel booking site Tokopedia. All three are seen to have tapped into the “consumer internet revolution in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.” Gojek and Tokopedia merged last year and subsequently went public in Jakarta as GoTo.

Sequoia also noted the rise of coffee shop chain Kopi Kenangan as a consumer brand in Indonesia and the leaps made by healthcare monitoring business Biofourmis and artificial intelligence-enabled marketing platforms Insider and Appier in transcending the region to gain global relevance. Web3 in Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia was highlighted as an emerging opportunity.

There have been some missteps along the way. In April, Sequoia pledged a strong response to “wilful misconduct or fraud” following a spate of scandals. No companies were named, but the statement coincided with an internal dispute and public recriminations at Indian payments player BharatPe and a fraud investigation at Singapore fashion e-commerce platform Zilingo. The CEO was later removed.

Sequoia is also fundraising for its China strategy. The firm is looking to raise USD 7.1bn across seed, venture, growth, and expansion strategies. If the hard caps are hit, Sequoia will have USD 8.8bn in committed capital. It raised USD 3.68bn in the previous China vintage.

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• Topics
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