Venture capital firm Peak XV ('Peak Fifteen'; formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) has announced the latest cohort (third) of its Spark fellowship for female founders. A total of 14 companies and 16 female founders will be part of Spark 03, the company said in a statement.

“Of the many applications we received for this cohort of Spark, these 16 founders really impressed us with their ambition, first principles thinking, and rich operating experience. Many of them are second-time founders. We are excited to see them develop into leaders of tomorrow,” the release quoted Sakshi Chopra, MD, Peak XV, as saying.

Spark 03
With this latest cohort, Peak XV's curated community of startups now includes 48 founders and 41 startups across more than 10 sectors in less than three years, the release added.

Of the participating companies, four focus on artificial intelligence (AI) – RaptorX.ai, FOBOH, Traverse, and Wordsworth AI – while as many are into healthcare ( BabyMD, Soulside, Evenly, and Stealth). Others are Profit Peak, an SaaS (software as a service) for e-commerce businesses; Fix My Curls, a hair care brand; Meritic, which helps mid-market firms automate their reporting and analysis; Melvvi, which develops handmade and sustainable life style products; CHOSEN, a maker of high-performance skin care products; and, Sourced, which is building an AI-powered consignment platform.

What is Peak XV's ‘Spark’?
It is a four-month-long programme that includes a $100,000 (approx. ₹83 lakh) equity-free grant. It is open to female founders in the early stages of starting up, with each startup receiving more than $1 million (approx. ₹8.3 crore) in perks from other companies, from cloud credits to devtools, analytics, etc.