India is home to over 100 GenAI startups that have raised more than $600 million since 2019. Spearheading this transition are names like Sarvam AI and Krutrim, which are focussed on building Indic LLMs, while others like Observe.AI, having secured $214 million, are utilising AI to offer customised customer and operational support to businesses.
India’s GenAI market is expected to see a major boom in the coming years and is projected to cross the $17-billion mark by 2030. Here are some Indian startups that are causing a stir in the rapidly evolving Indian GenAI space.
TWO AI
TWO AI, founded by Pranav Mistry in 2023, focuses on building advanced conversational AI technologies. The platform is designed to provide enhanced voice AI solutions for businesses, including creating more human-like interactions.
The startup raised $7.5 million in the seed funding round in 2023, led by prominent venture capital firms such as Nexus Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The funds are being used to scale their AI models and develop more sophisticated conversational tools.
Pixis
Founded in 2020 by Harikrishna Valiyath, Shubham A Mishra, and Vrushali Prasade, Pixis provides a codeless AI infrastructure platform for brands to monitor and orchestrate their marketing campaigns.
Since its inception, the startup has raised $209 million in capital, raising $85 million in its last funding round in 2023.
Pixis is backed by startups like Grupo Carso, General Atlantic, Celesta Capital and Chiratae Ventures. It competes with the likes of Utilidata, HeadSpin, and Navikenz in the larger AI-powered technology space.
Ola Krutrim
Founded in 2022 by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, Krutrim is experimenting with GenAI to develop an India-specific LLM. The startup’s family of LLMs is said to be capable of working with 10 Indian languages. The startup competes with the likes of Sarvam AI, Mistral AI, and Google DeepMind.
Krutrim introduced its AI chatbot in December 2023 and launched its public beta version. It is a multilingual model capable of understanding over 20 Indian languages and generating text in 10 of them, including English, Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali.
The startup made headlines in January 2024 when it became the first pure-play AI startup in India to hit a unicorn valuation after its $50 million funding round. So far, it has secured $74 million in funding from backers such as Matrix Partners India, becoming one of the most well-funded AI startups in the country.
SarvamAI
Founded in 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, SarvamAI aims to develop custom-made LLMs, designed specifically for India-centric use cases. Backed by names such as Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures, the Bengaluru-based GenAI startup raised a Series A funding of $41 million led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in December 2023.
Recently, the startup announced India’s first open-source LLM, named Sarvam 2B. It is designed to support 10 Indian languages and is trained on an extensive dataset of 4 trillion tokens.
Beatoven.AI
Founded in 2021 by Mansoor Rahimat Khan and Siddharth Bhardwaj, this company has raised over $2.4 million in funding from investors including Capital2B (Info Edge), IvyCap Ventures, and Upsparks Capital.
The company makes use of generative AI to create background music tailored for video, podcast, and game creators.
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Avaamo
Founded in 2014 by Ram Menon and Sriram Chakravarthy, Avaamo is a deep-learning software company that specialises in conversational interfaces to solve specific, high-impact problems in the enterprise tech realm.
Avaamo is building fundamental AI technology across a broad area of neural networks, speech synthesis and deep learning to make conversational computing for businesses a reality. It counts PolyAI, Zira, Odeza, and wrnchAI as its competitors.
Over the years, the company has raised over $30 million from the likes of Intel Capital, Ericsson Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, WI Harper Group and Mahindra Partners. It raised 7 million in its last funding round in 2021.
InVideo
Founded in 2019 by Sanket Shah and later joined by Anshul Khandelwal, InVideo initially operated a web-based video editing platform that allowed users to convert existing pieces of static content into videos.
However, it has come a long way since then. Currently, the startup operates a full-fledged AI-powered video editing platform that utilises GenAI to create videos with text prompts. Users just have to input the topic and the platform generates a script, adds scenes and voiceovers, among other things.
The startup has raised capital of $52.5 million to date and is backed by names such as Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global, Hummingbird, RTP Global and Base. It competes with the likes of Kapwing, Synthesia, Veed, and Rephrase.ai, among others.
As of 2024, InVideo has over 7 million users globally. The platform is popular for its user-friendly AI video creation tools, offering more than 5,000 templates for various video formats.
Jivi
Jivi AI was founded in 2023 by Ankur Jain, a former Chief Product Officer at BharatPe and GV Sanjay Reddy, Chairman, Reddy Ventures. The company recently completed a seed round and is currently in discussions to close another round of funding.
It uses machine learning, and large language models to revolutionise primary healthcare by offering AI-driven healthcare solutions. The company partners with doctors and hospitals to enhance patient care. Its focus includes digital health innovations and generative AI technologies
Murf AI
Founded in 2020 by IIT-Kharagpur graduates Sneha Roy, Ankur Edkie, and Divyanshu Pandey, Murf AI uses AI to create high-quality voice-overs without recording equipment for its users in minutes.
The growth-stage startup has raised a total funding of $11.5 million. In its last funding round, it raised $10 million in 2022. It is backed by investors like Matrix Partners, and Elevation Capital and counts Imaginario AI, VideoDubber, and Rephrase AI as its competitors.
DhiWise
Founded in 2021 by Vishal Virani, DhiWise is an AI-enabled programming platform where developers can convert their designs into developer-friendly code for mobile and web apps. It automates and expedites the application development lifecycle and instantly generates readable, modular, and reusable code.
The startup has raised a total of $9 million since its inception, raising $7 million in 2022. DhiWise is supported by marquee investors like Accel, AngelList India, Storm Ventures, Abhishek Deo, and Pentathlon Ventures. It competes with the likes of Observe AI, Pixis, QpiAI, and Kombai.
Spyne
Founded in 2018 by Deepti Prasad and Sanjay Kumar, Spyne is helping businesses and marketplaces create and upgrade high-quality product images and videos at scale with AI.
The company has so far raised $7.6 million from Accel Partners, Storm Ventures, and other investors. It raised $7 million in its last funding round in 2022. The Gurugram-based startup competes with companies like zapero.ai, Dresma, Ayna, Blend, and Orbo AI.
