Peak XV Partners has raised the maximum seed investment through its Surge platform to 5 million dollars per startup.

The firm unveiled Surge 12, its newest cohort of 18 startups, on September 29. It has invested more than 50 million dollars across the group. The startups have together raised over 90 million dollars in seed funding.

The higher ceiling, up from 3 million dollars, reflects how seed rounds have grown. "The bar to raise a Series A has gone up pretty significantly," said Rajan Anandan, managing director at Peak XV.

The cohort leans toward AI and capital-heavy deep tech. Examples include Reinforce Labs in enterprise AI safety, Puralink's underground-pipe robots and ULOOK's satellite sensing.

More than half the startups are based in India, but only five target the Indian market. The rest are building for global customers, from San Francisco to Sydney.

Since 2019, Surge has backed over 180 startups. Peak XV says its top 10 alumni now generate more than 1 billion dollars in combined annual revenue.