India’s Biggest AI Startups Based on Funding Raised

India’s AI startup ecosystem is burgeoning, driven by its vast engineering talent. While funding for Indian AI startups is limited compared to the billions raised by their U.S. and European counterparts, venture capital is increasingly directed toward local talent addressing regional problems.

Key Indian AI Startups and Their Funding

Krutrim

• Founder: Bhavish Aggarwal

• Funding Raised: $50 million

• Key Investors: Matrix Partners India

Led by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, Krutrim (Hindi of Sanskrit origin meaning “artificial”) is India’s first unicorn AI startup, valued at $1 billion on just $50 million of money raised. Launched in December 2023 in Bengaluru, Krutrim is building a large language model (LLM) based on Indian languages and English. Earlier this year, it introduced an AI chatbot, which (not unlike its Western counterparts) saw a backlash upon its public beta launch over inaccurate results. The startup claims its AI model improves through regular updates.

Sarvam AI

• Founders: Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar

• Funding Raised: $41 million

• Key Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Peak XV Partners, Khosla Ventures

Sarvam AI (Telugu for “everything”) is India’s other high-profile startup working on LLMs based on Indian languages. The startup was co-founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, who both worked previously with tech veteran Nandan Nilekani on IIT Madras’ project AI4Bharat. The Bengaluru-based startup emerged from stealth in December and aims to offer full-stack generative AI offerings, including a platform to let enterprises develop GenAI apps based on Sarvam’s LLM and contribute to open-source models and datasets. In February, Sarvam AI partnered with Microsoft to launch voice-based AI tools and bring its Indic voice LLM

to Azure.

Mad Street Den

• Founders: Ashwini Asokan and Anand Chandrasekaran

• Funding Raised: $67 million

• Key Investors: Avatar Growth Capital, Peak XV Partners, Alpha Wave Global

Computer vision startup Mad Street Den is building AI solutions for enterprise customers. The Chennai-based startup, co-founded by the neuroscientist-designer couple Ashwini Asokan and Anand Chandrasekaran in 2016, initially introduced its vision tech for the retail segment, though it expanded to verticals, including finance, insurance, healthcare, and logistics. Its bigger vision goes beyond its home market, per its mission: “to make people all over the globe A.I natives.”

Wysa

• Founders: Jo Aggarwal and Ramakant Vempati

• Funding Raised: $25 million

• Key Investors: HealthQuad, W Health, British International Investment, Google Assistant Fund

Wysa is a mental health tech startup that uses AI to offer an “emotionally intelligent” therapist chatbot that helps users talk through their feelings. Managed by Wysa’s mental health professionals, the chatbot is used by over 6.5 million people across more than 95 countries and diverse age groups. The Bengaluru-based startup, which also has operations in Boston and London, raised $20 million in July 2022. It was co-founded by Jo Aggarwal and her husband, Ramakant Vempati, in 2016 after Aggarwal fell into a deep depression.

Neysa Networks

• Founders: Sharad Sanghi and Anindya Das

• Funding Raised: $20 million

• Key Investors: Matrix Partners India, Nexus Venture Partners, NTTVC

Mumbai-based Neysa Networks is led by seasoned tech entrepreneur Sharad Sanghi, who previously founded cloud and data company Netmagic Solutions. It offers a variety of generative AI platforms and services to businesses to let them deploy AI and machine learning. The startup’s Nebula platform is used to scale AI projects using on-demand GPU infrastructure and train and infer AI models on the cloud. The company’s Palvera platform provides multi-vendor and multi-input observability and lets users preemptively identify issues using a unified data lake and preexisting telemetry datasets. The Aegis platform focuses on AI/ ML security.