Moonshot Sequoia India & Southeast Asia

India's manufacturing sector, which contributes 18% of the country’s GDP, is on the cusp of change. This highly labor intensive sector, which is plagued with logistical and technical issues, is undergoing a transformation as workers upskill and companies start to digitize their processes to improve efficiency. In 2018, Amrit Acharya, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Vishal Chaudhary, and Rahul Sharma launched Zetwerk, a B2B manufacturing network that offers companies manufacturing solutions across a wide variety of products. On this episode of Moonshot, we speak with Amrit Acharya, Co-Founder and CEO of Zetwerk and Shailesh Lakhani, Managing Director at Sequoia India, about how the startup is taking a bold bet to bring a centuries-old industry into the digital age.

In 2017, a group of hackers in India figured out a way to get the best prices on cryptocurrencies at any point in time by aggregating data from all the crypto exchanges. That was the origin of CoinSwitch, a startup with a mission to ‘make money equal for all’. The platform gained traction, went through a few pivots and soon became one of India’s largest cryptocurrency trading apps. On this episode of Moonshot, we chat with CoinSwitch co-founder and CEO Ashish Singhal and Sequoia India Managing Director Shailesh Lakhani about how the startup is taking crypto to the masses by differentiating itself from its competitors, educating users, and tracking user gains to improve their product.

"We need to do the hardest thing. If you choose the easy things to do, many people choose that way. That route is very crowded." It’s this mindset that propelled Hugh Yao to grow LingoAce into a global startup with a team of over 4,500 teachers. The EdTech platform, which was launched in 2017, started out offering Chinese language courses for kids that used gamification to make learning fun. In 2022, the platform rolled out its English program in just three months – something Hugh credits to hiring and acquiring teams quickly. On this episode of Moonshot, LingoAce founder Hugh Yao chats with Sequoia India & Southeast Asia Managing Director Abheek Anand about how he saw opportunity in tough times, what it takes to hire moonshot talent, and how the LingoAce team rolled out its English program in such a short span of time.

Doug Leone has led Sequoia Capital for over 25 years, overseeing the firm’s international expansion. Throughout his time at Sequoia, Doug formed partnerships with companies like Nubank, Medallia, ServiceNow and Wiz. He’s seen thousands of pitches and worked with hundreds of founders as they grow and scale their startups. On this episode of Moonshot, Doug chats with Sequoia India Managing Director Rajan Anandan about some of the insights he’s gained over the past two decades working with startups, common pitfalls founders should look out for, and what it takes to build a truly enduring company. The conversation took place during an AMA at Surge – our rapid scale-up program for early-stage startups.

Millions of people across India buy and sell goods on e-commerce platform Meesho every month. The platform fulfils an average of three million orders a day. Meesho, which started off as a social commerce platform helping millions of women and homemakers run businesses from their home, is now on a mission to democratise e-commerce in India for millions more. Launched in 2017 by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, the platform is bringing down costs and lowering barriers to entry for many merchants – while helping them digitise, list their goods, process orders, track payments and manage inventory. On this episode of Moonshot, Meesho Co-Founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey chats with Sequoia India Managing Director Mohit Bhatnagar, about how bucking tradition led to the genesis of Meesho, why startup founders need to regularly talk to their users, and how taking a no-frills approach to pricing can lead to higher retention rates.

Instant noodles may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think of healthy food, but Indonesian startup Lemonilo is disrupting the country’s consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry by offering a healthier version of Indonesia's favourite instant meal. The company is building relationships with communities to educate them on the importance of healthy living, while leveraging technology to get healthy snacks into the hands of consumers quickly. On this episode of Moonshot, Lemonilo's Co-Founder and CTO Johannes Ardiant chats with Rohit Agarwal, a principal at Sequoia India and Southeast Asia about the need to take a community-first approach when building a consumer brand, how Lemonilo is getting its products to market quickly, and why startup founders should pick the right problem before focusing on a solution.