Peak XV Selects 18 Startups for Latest Surge Cohort, Raises Investment Cap to $5 Mn

Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India and SEA) has selected 18 startups for the 12th cohort of Surge, its seed-stage investment programme, increasing its maximum investment per company from $3 million to $5 million. The revised structure brings Surge closer to the venture capital firm's broader early-stage investment practice.

The new cohort spans artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, space technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer technology, and music. Peak XV invested more than $50 million across the cohort, with companies collectively raising over $90 million in seed funding, according to the firm.

Under the revised programme, Surge can invest between $500,000 and $5 million in each company through equity investments. The higher ceiling gives Peak XV greater flexibility to support startups with different capital requirements.

Fifteen of the 18 startups have been publicly named, while three remain in stealth mode. Around half of the cohort comprises AI-native companies, according to Peak XV.

Some of the named startups include Alma, which is developing personal computing for an AI-native environment, and Hiloop, which is building infrastructure to help AI companies train, test, and improve open-weight models. Reinforce Labs is developing tools for evaluating, red teaming, and improving enterprise AI systems.

Other companies are applying AI to specific industries. August AI is developing clinical intelligence for primary care, while Rosella is building an AI-powered commercial insurance brokerage. Tribe Money is developing an AI-based personal finance platform.

The cohort also includes startups working on physical infrastructure and consumer applications. Puralink is developing autonomous robots to inspect underground pipes, while ULOOK is building radio-frequency sensing satellites for spectrum intelligence. Riffle is developing a browser-based platform for collaborative music creation.

Rajan Anandan, Managing Director at Peak XV Partners and Surge, said the founders in the latest cohort are building to fundamentally change technology and consumer behaviour.

"What stands out about Surge 12 is that these founders are building these companies on first principles," Anandan said in a statement.

He added that AI was increasingly becoming the architecture of products, as startups rethought how people create, shop, date, invest, and access healthcare.

The cohort also includes founders with experience at established technology companies. Alma's founders previously worked at Microsoft Research before becoming founding engineers at Sarvam AI. Kello co-founder Mona Gandhi was Airbnb's first female engineer and previously founded Upraised. Reinforce Labs founder Anish Das Sarma previously built a company acquired by Airbnb and later led AI and machine-learning teams at Google.

Launched in 2019, Surge provides early-stage startups with investment and operational support in areas such as hiring, product development, engineering, marketing, and global expansion.

Peak XV said it has backed more than 180 startups through the programme. Its 10 largest portfolio companies collectively generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue.