Sequoia Capital Announces Year-Long Fellowship To Support Women Entrepreneurs

The American venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, has announced that it will be launching Sequoia Spark, a year-long fellowship programme to promote and support women entrepreneurs in India and Southeast Asia. The programme will provide shortlisted women from the region with deep and immersive mentorship about capital. The applications for this fellowship are now open.

In a note from the company, it was announced that the Sequoia Spark Fellowship will give $100,000 grants to 15 women-led startups which are in their early stages of development, and therefore most in need of capital guidance. Once selected, the fellows will start the programme in November 2021, and each will receive one-on-one mentorship from a group of Sequoia founders, investment advisors, and specialists from across the US, India and Southeast Asia.

These mentorships will involve close to 20 hours of virtual chats every month. The programme will also provide conversations with global women leaders through a segment called Spark Talks, and insights into company-building through Spark Studios.

“Our goal is to encourage more women to build companies, to inspire more women to lead, and build for the future,” the note stated. “This is just a small step in that direction for us. We need to do more, as an ecosystem. Just 12 per cent of venture-backed startups in India, and 20 per cent in ASEAN have at least one female founder, as of 2020, according to data sourced from Tracxn and Crunchbase.”