# Meet The Startups From Peak XV’s ‘Surge 12’ — retained record

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source: [news](https://highsignal.app/data/news) (news:india-inc42)  published 2026-09-29 09:50 ingested 2026-09-30 03:02

[original source ↗](https://inc42.com/buzz/meet-the-startups-from-peak-xvs-surge-12/)

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VC firm Peak XV Partners has launched the twelfth cohort of its accelerator and incubation programme, Surge. The cohort features 18 startups from India, US and South East Asia operating across sectors like AI, robotics, space, consumer, healthcare, music and fintech. Important to mention that three startups selected in the cohort are operating in stealth mode. Seven startups in Peak XV’s Surge 12 cohort hail from India. “What stands out about Surge 12 is that these founders are building these companies on first principles. They are questioning whether the underlying experience should work that way at all,” Peak XV’s managing director Rajan Anandan said. Peak XV launched the Surge program back in 2019, when it was operating as Sequoia Capital India & SEA, and has launched two cohorts each year since. Under this, it combines up to $3 Mn of seed capital with company-building workshops, community access, and a global curriculum delivered by world-class operators. As per a report by TechCrunch, Surge 12 cohort is the first to operate under Peak XV’s higher investment ceiling of up to $5 Mn per startup. Besides Surge, the VC firm manages a capital portfolio exceeding $9 Bn across 13 funds, with investments in over 400 companies across India and Southeast Asia. The firm’s portfolio boasts 36 companies that have gone public via its IPOs till date. With that, let’s take a look at the startups selected for Surge 12 cohort Meet The 15 Startups Backed By Surge 12 1. Alma Founded in : 2025 Founders : Nischith Shadagopan MN, Vinod Ganesan Headquarters : San Francisco Total Funding : Undisclosed Alma is building an AI-native interface that aims to change how people interact with computers. Instead of requiring users to open different applications, navigate menus and manually execute a series of steps, Alma wants users to simply tell the computer what they want to accomplish. 2. August AI Founded in : 2022 Founders : Anuruddh Mishra Headquarters : Bengaluru Total Funding : $3 Mn August is trying to be an AI layer between patients and the healthcare system. It builds an AI-powered health companion that helps users understand symptoms, medical reports, prescriptions and other health information. 3. Ditto Founded in : 2024 Founders : Allen Wang, Eric Liu Headquarters : Berkeley Total Funding : $9.2 Mn Ditto is trying to replace dating apps with an AI matchmaker. The AI analyses the preferences of users on the relevant campus, identifies potential matches and sets up an actual date, including the time and location. Ditto had 1.3 Lakh users by mid-2026. 4. GameStock Founded in : 2022 Founders : Antoine Mistico, Easton Dana, Vivek Indlebele Narasimha Prasad Headquarters : New York Total Funding : $2 Mn GameStock is building a gamified social trading platform, where it lets users pick stocks, crypto or futures and compete in trading tournaments and private leagues, with rankings based on portfolio performance. It is also building a creator-led distribution model, allowing finfluencers host tournaments for their communities. 5. hiloop Founded in : 2026 Founders : Karan Brar, Thomas Boser Headquarters : San Francisco Total Funding : Undisclosed hiloop gives AI companies an automated research team that runs experiments to improve their models. Instead of an AI researcher manually trying hundreds of possible improvements, AI agents can propose and test different approaches themselves. 6. Hoola Health Founded in : 2024 Founders : Deeksha Senguttuvan Headquarters : Bengaluru Total Funding : $5 Mn Hoola Health, erstwhile known as BabyMD, offers a diverse range of paediatric services, including consultations, vaccinations, diagnostics, developmental assessments, therapies, and specialist care, with plans to expand into areas such as paediatric dentistry. 7. Kello Founded in : 2025 Founders : Mona Gandhi, Subramanya Jingade Headquarters : Bengaluru Total Funding : Undisclosed Kello is trying to turn recruiting from a keyword-search exercise into an AI research process by using AI agents to research large talent pools, understand what a company is looking for and surface candidates with explanations of why they may or may not fit a role. 8. Kindling Founded in : 2024 Founders : Sachin Shah, Adam Miller Headquarters : Sydney Total Funding : $500K Kindling is a B2B distribution startup that combines market intelligence, AI-driven strategy and content execution to help companies identify and warm up potential customers before sales outreach. 9. Puralink Founded in : 2022 Founders : Harrison Crowe-Maxwell, Shyeon Delnawaz, Thien Long Tran Headquarters : Sydney Total Funding : $1.7 Mn Puralink is building autonomous "Ferret" robots that travel inside underground pipes to capture CCTV, LiDAR and mapping data, helping infrastructure operators inspect pipe networks without extensive excavation. 10. Reinforce Labs Founded in : 2025 Founders : Anish Das Sarma Headquarters : Palo Alto Total Funding : Undisclosed Reinforce uses AI-powered adversarial testing to simulate these situations at scale. Its platform can run thousands of scenarios and personas against AI agents and grade their responses against the company's policies. 11. Riffle Founded in : 2025 Founders : Akshay Deokuliar, Anurag Choudhary Headquarters : Bengaluru Total Funding : $1 Mn Riffle is a musictech startup building a browser-based collaborative music studio where artists can record, arrange and layer sounds on an infinite canvas, with an AI co-producer helping generate ideas and musical elements. 12. Rosella Founded in : 2025 Founders : Sean Stuart, Chris Dwyer Headquarters : Sydney Total Funding : $3.7 Mn Rosella acts as an intermediary between businesses and insurance carriers. It is building a technology-enabled commercial insurance brokerage for US small and mid-sized businesses, combining human brokers with software to automate risk analysis, policy placement and servicing. 13. Tribe Money Founded in : 2025 Founders : Aditya Varma, Himanshu Arora, Nikhil Shanker Headquarters : Delhi NCR Total Funding : $1 Mn tribe is building an AI-powered personal finance companion that aggregates users' income, expenses, investments and loans, then identifies opportunities to save, invest and optimise their money. 14. ULOOK Founded in : 2024 Founders : Siddhesh Naik, Adheesh Boratkar Headquarters : Bengaluru Total Funding : $2.3 Mn ULOOK is building autonomous satellite swarms that use radio frequency (RF) sensing and AI to detect, classify, geolocate and track radio signals from ships, aircraft and ground-based transmitters for defence, maritime surveillance and environmental monitoring. 15. Wingit Founded in : 2026 Founders : Nikunj Kothari, Saksham Khandelwal Headquarters : Gurugram Total Funding : $7 Mn Wingit is a beauty-commerce startup building an at-home concierge service that lets consumers try premium makeup, skincare and fragrances with the help of beauty advisors before paying only for the products they choose to keep.
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