BENGALURU : With the covid-19 crisis impacting the startup ecosystem, Sequoia Capital India said that founders are grappling with difficult choices and increasingly looking for ways to make their organisations more adaptable, resilient and ‘recession-proof’.
As a part of this, Sequoia India has also launched a microsite to serve as a resource for founders and their teams during the challenging months ahead.
The impact of covid-19 can be seen on Indian startups, with several Indian unicorns including Udaan, OYO and Swiggy laying off and furloughing their permanent and contractual staff, last month.
“Startups, particularly those in the seed and Series A stage, operate with a high level of uncertainty during the normal course of business. Covid-19 is redefining what uncertainty means," said Sequoia Capital India in the first edition of its regional newsletter.
In a March blogpost, Sequoia Capital called coronavirus as the ‘Black Swan of 2020’, and laid down guidance to ensure the health of businesses in its portfolio. The guidance urged founders to question their cash runway, capital spending and sales forecast, which could be affected as an outcome of the current ongoing pandemic.
In April, venture capital (VC) firms including Sequoia Capital, along with other prominent Indian startup founders and CEOs, came together to launch ACT (Action Covid Team), which provided grants to companies developing original solutions to combat the spread of the covid-19.
Sequoia Capital India also mentioned in its newsletter that its existing portfolio across India & ASEAN, raised a total of $2.8 billion in Q1 2020 from a variety of investors. Sequoia also participated in some of these investment rounds.
Of this some of the larger ones included- Indonesian unicorn Go Jek’s $1.2 billion Series F round; Indian food tech unicorn Zomato’s $150 million funding from Ant Financial; as well as Indian edtech unicorn BYJU’s which recently funding from General Atlantic and Tiger Global Management- in which Sequoia Capital India didn’t participate.
However, over the past quarter, Sequoia Capital India did participate in Unacademy’s $110 million Series E funding.
Further, the global venture capital firm also added newer companies to its portfolio, while investing this quarter in babycare brand Mamaearth; digital adoption provider Whatfix; agri-tech platform DeHaat, AI-based healthcare startup, Qure.ai; as well as AI-platfrom Salesken.ai, amongst others.
Sequoia Capital India also said that it is closely tracking the ‘rise of direct-to-consumer brands with strong appeal to Asia's mobile-first millennials’ along with agritech as a segment.
At the end of April, Sequoia Capital India also announced the third batch of its accelerator programme for startups, Surge, backing seven early stage Indian startups.
“While some startups in areas like edutech, online gaming, collaboration, food delivery or healthcare will see growth during this period, others will face difficult choices in the weeks and months ahead," said Rajan Anandan, MD of Sequoia Capital India in a recent column in Mint.
Click here to read the Mint ePaper Livemint.com is now on Telegram. Join Livemint channel in your Telegram and stay updated
