Sarvam AI Obtained $41 Million in Funding Led by Lightspeed, the Largest Amount Ever Raised by an Indian AI Startup Business

The Indian generative AI startup Sarvam AI announced on Thursday that it has raised $41 million in its Series A round, which Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners supported, under the direction of Lightspeed.

For an Indian AI startup, this is the biggest fundraising to date.

Sarvam AI, which was founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, aims to create the “full-stack” for generative AI, from enterprise-grade authoring and deployment platforms to research-driven advances in training unique AI models.

Partner at Lightspeed Hemant Mohapatra stated: “We are thrilled about Sarvam AI’s novel strategy of fusing application development and model research to create population-scale solutions for India. We have backed some of the most influential names in GenAI globally.”

Given that businesses recognize the promise of GenAI but are still determining how to best utilize it, Sarvam AI thinks that their full-stack strategy would hasten the adoption of GenAI in India. In order to support voice-first interfaces and a wide range of Indian languages, Sarvam AI will train AI models.

The business will collaborate with Indian businesses to jointly develop AI models that are domain-specific using their data.

Lastly, with a focus on public-good applications, the company wants to build a population-scale effect by adding GenAI on top of the immensely successful India stack.

“India has shown that it can use technology in different ways, and we have a chance to rethink how this technology can improve people’s lives with GenAI,” Raghavan added.

“We see several countries having sovereign efforts to build GenAI models given their strategic importance,” stated Vinod Khosla, a pioneer in Silicon Valley AI investments who also provided early backing for OpenAI. To gain in-depth knowledge for creating AI in and for India, we need businesses like Sarvam AI.

A top-notch team is being assembled by Sarvam AI under the direction of its prosperous founders.

“There is excitement and division in the race towards ever-more-powerful AI. As a result of our deliberate investments in technological and ecosystem advancements that make this technology available to everyone, we named our company Sarvam, which means “all” in Sanskrit,” added Kumar.