In a significant milestone for the future of artificial intelligence tailored to the Indian context, Sarvam AI, a pioneering generative AI startup, has successfully raised $41 million in a Series A funding round. Lightspeed leads the investment, accompanied by contributions from Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures.
Sarvam AI is setting its sights on addressing India’s distinctive requirements, emphasizing the training of AI models to accommodate the diverse array of Indian languages and the implementation of voice-first interfaces, as highlighted in their recent press release. The company also plans to collaborate with Indian enterprises in co-building domain-specific AI models using their data.
Co-founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, Sarvam AI envisions creating a comprehensive Generative AI stack. This ambitious undertaking spans research-led innovations for training customized AI models to developing an enterprise-grade platform for authoring and deploying these models. The company believes that this full-stack approach will expedite the adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) in India as enterprises recognize its potential but grapple with integrating it into their business operations.
Vivek Raghavan, drawing on a decade-long experience in building digital public infrastructure, including Aadhaar, expressed his belief in the transformative power of innovation at foundational levels deployed at a population scale. He sees GenAI as an opportunity to reimagine how technology can significantly enhance people’s lives, citing India’s unique ability to harness technology in unconventional ways.
Raghavan and Kumar previously collaborated on developing AI models for speech recognition and translation at AI4Bharat. In June, AI4Bharat unveiled a groundbreaking mobile assistant designed to make information on government schemes accessible in multiple languages, marking another stride in leveraging AI for societal benefit.
The funding landscape for generative AI startups has been vibrant over the past 12 months, with notable names such as OnFinance.ai, Hexo, and Gan.ai (also backed by Peak XV Partners) securing early rounds. The partnership between Jio Platforms and NVIDIA in September further underscores the growing interest in building cloud-based AI infrastructure in India. According to Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, this collaboration positions Reliance to develop large language models powering generative AI applications, all crafted within the Indian innovation landscape.
