Introducing the Guild: A community of Founders Building Enduring Companies

Sequoia Capital India is incredibly excited to launch The Guild – a program and community designed with, and for, the founding CEOs of some of the most successful growth-stage startups from our portfolio.

While many startups are successful, only a few are able to achieve enduring success for decades. The Guild aims to bring founders together on a regular basis to share their experiences, learn from each other, hear from other world-class speakers, and hopefully make a small difference in their quest to build the world’s most enduring companies.

We are fortunate to have partnered with many incredible startups over the last 14+ years. The Sequoia India and Southeast Asia portfolio currently has 43 companies that each have between $50 million to $1 billion+ in annualized revenues – and many of these startups are growing rapidly. This is a testament to the courage, fortitude and vision of the founders of this region and it is a massive privilege for our team to share the journey with these dentmakers, who are going to shape the future of many industries in our region.

Creating a community of like-minded company builders and category creators, who can learn and grow together, is a powerful way to further unleash their potential.

The program will run over a six-month period. Each group will be small, with 12 to 16 founders, and will have one or two anchor sectors that the founders belong to, so there is a balance of shared context with room for learning. A significant percent of the first cohort of founders will be from the Consumer Internet & Mobile sector. Future cohorts will include founders from SaaS, Fintech, B2B, Consumer and other categories. Founders from the Sequoia India portfolio will be invited to join The Guild as their startups achieve scale.

The Guild will meet twice a month; sessions will include global perspectives on company building, candid founder to founder conversations, and AMA’s with best business leaders and company builders from all over the world.

At Sequoia Capital India, we are deeply committed to doing everything possible to help our founders build enduring companies. Last year, we launched Surge for seed-stage founders. We relentlessly ask ourselves “how can we help founders succeed”, challenging ourselves to break the mould and try new things.

The Guild is our new startup, co-created with some of the most innovative and dynamic founders in India and SEA. It’s one more step in the pursuit of our mission to help the daring build legendary companies, from idea to IPO and beyond. We hope this community will play an important role in shaping the journey of many iconic startups in the years to come.

This column was originally published on LinkedIn.