The latest move in the venture capital firm Peak XV’s expanding offerings and networking flex is the company is taking its portfolio companies from Australia, India, and Southeast Asia on a “immersion” trip to Silicon Valley this week to meet with a number of industry titans. Peak XV split from Sequoia Capital last year.
A participant briefed on the topic stated that roughly 60 founders, many supported by Peak XV’s very influential programme Surge, will go with partners from the company to meet industry leaders and visit AI research centres.
According to an email the firm sent to portfolio businesses that TechCrunch saw, the week would have speeches from seasoned operators like Uniphore head Umesh Sachdev and DoorDash advisor Gokul Rajaram, as well as strategy sessions with executives from OpenAI and Nvidia and Sequoia partner Doug Leone.
The initiative, known internally as “Immersion Week,” offers the most recent look into Peak XV’s expanding portfolio beyond cheque writing as the rivalry among venture capitalists to acquire access to the world’s most promising AI businesses heats up.
The depth of deeptech and AI startups is still lacking in India, one of the largest startup ecosystems. In India, only few players are trying to develop huge, foundational language models. One such business is Sarvam AI, which this week announced a $41 million fundraising round headed by Peak XV and Lightspeed India.
It also just secured a relationship with Microsoft. According to investors, a lot of India’s current companies are planning what new skills to develop and how to reach out to other markets; for this reason, a trip like “Immersion” may be helpful.
Since splitting off last year, Peak XV has been aggressively expanding its bench strength and networking capabilities across geographies, with $2.5 billion to deploy in the area. An inquiry for comment sent out Monday morning was not immediately answered by Peak XV.
However, Peak XV informed founders that the trip would “focus on building world-class products” and obtaining “a glimpse into the AI world” in an email sent over the weekend to portfolio businesses.
According to the person briefed on the subject, Peak XV Managing Directors Shailendra Singh, Rajan Anandan, Harshjit Sethi, Ashish Agrawal, and Surge Partner Pieter Kemps are among those organising the week.
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