Earlier this month, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade announced that India is the home of around 1.4 lakh Indian startups. These startups have around 100 gen AI startups that put India on the Global AI map. In November 2022 when OpenAI took the AI sector by storm, India’s Gen AI ecosystem was still in the infancy stage. Compared to back then, India has made huge progress in this sector. Krutim became the first AI unicorn in the country and attracted major interest from investors in this sector.
Inc42 mentioned in a report that India now has more than 100 generative AI startups and these startups have raised over 600 million USD since 2019. Startups like Krutrim and SarvamAI are focusing on developing IndicLLMs. Another GenAI startup ObserveAI secured $214 million in its fresh funding rounds to use artificial intelligence and provide customized customer care while offering operational support to businesses.
At present, many other companies are using the technology and services from these startups to provide streamlined experiences to their customers. The generative AI sector is growing rapidly across India and here we are talking about the top 10 gen AI startups that enable India to enter the global AI maps.
Observe AI
Observe AI is an artificial intelligence platform that enables customer voice service. The startup uses natural language processing, the latest speech, and deep learning technologies to analyze customer conversations and provide a coaching and compliance tracking process. The startup has secured over 214 million USD across six funding rounds since its inception in 2019, including $125 million raised during its latest funding round. The company is backed by known investors including Y Combinator, Nexus Ventures, and Zoom. The AI startup faces competition from other companies in the same segment such as Slang Labs, and Noogata.
Ola Krutrim
The founder of Ola, Bhavish Aggarwal founded Ola Krutrim to experiment with GenAI and develop India LLM. The startup claims to have the capability to work with over 10 languages. The startup recently turned unicorn after securing $50 million in its funding round. The company has secured around $74 million across multiple funding rounds. The company is backed by Matrix Partners India and competes with other startups in this field like Mistral AI, and Sarvam AI.
Pixis
Pixis is an AI infrastructure platform that does not require any coding. The platform helps brands to monitor their marketing campaigns. The startup has secured around 209 million USD across all its funding rounds, this includes $85 million raised during its funding round last year. The company has investors including Celesta Capital, Chiratae Ventures, Grup Carso, and more. Pixis faces competition from companies including Navikenz, Utilidate, and Headspin.
Sarvam AI
Sarvam AI was founded a year ago but it is already gaining most investor’s interest due to its unique model. The company aims to develop customized LLMs which are designed especially for India-centric use cases. The startup secured $41 million in its series A funding round from Lightspeed Venture Partners with the participation of Peak XV partners and Khosla Ventures. Sarvam AI competes with Mistral AI and other AI companies.
Avaamo AI
Enterprise tech startup Avaamo entered the Gen AI market with Avaamo LLaMB which was designed especially for solving the challenges in large enterprises related to accuracy and data security. The startup has been working on building fundamental AI technologies across neural networks, deep learning, and speech synthesis to make conversational computing for businesses. The startup has secured over $30 million across multiple rounds to date, including the latest funding round of $7 million. The company receives investments from Intel Capital, Streamlined Ventures, Mahindra Partners, and Ericsson Ventures.
Gnan AI
Gnan.ai is a voice-first Gen AI platform that provides multiple products such as omnichannel conversational automation, omnichannel analytics, voice biometrics, and agent assistance. The startup aims to help businesses grow and enhance their customer support across all communication channels. The startup claims to work with over 100 companies including Muthoot Finance, Fibe, and TVS Credit. The Bengaluru startup secured $4 million from Samsung Ventures and angel investors. It faces competition from other companies like Haptik, and Rezo AI.
Senseforth
Conversational AI solution provider Senseforth is one of the leading AI companies. The startup enables automated conversations between organizations and customers. The company secured $14 million in its funding round from Fractal to expand its services and aim for market expansion in 2022. The startup faces competition from other conversational AI platforms such as Kore AI, Simplified, and IBM Watsnox Assistant.
Devise
Devise provides an AI-based Programming platform that allows developers to convert their designs into code for web applications and mobile. The platform automates the application development lifecycle to generate modular, understandable, and reusable code formats. The startup has secured around 9 million USD since its inception, including $7 million raised from Accel, Storm Ventures, and other investors in 2022. The company faces competition from Observe AI, Qpi AI, and Pixis.
Rephrase AI
This Gen AI startup creates professional videos with written text input from users in a few minutes. The company has raised a total of 12 million in funding across multiple rounds. The startup recently secured $10.6 million from its existing investors. The investors of the firm include 8VC, Techstars, Silver Lake, and AV8 Ventures. This AI video-creating startup was acquired by Adobe in 2023 to use its technology and offer more innovative services.
Simplismart
Generative AI startup Simplismart uses advanced artificial intelligence and generative AI technologies to allow businesses to create scalable production-grade AI systems and manage a product development lifecycle without the need for any prior coding knowledge. Last month, the company announced its plans to secure a $7 million investment from Accel in the fresh funding round at a valuation of $35 million. The company competes with other AI companies in the same sector.
LimeChat
LimeChat is an AI platform that uses artificial intelligence to allow companies to instantly respond to customers through different communication channels such as Instagram and WhatsApp. The startup claims to be working with more than 300 brands in WhatsApp commerce like Mamaearth, Wow Skin Science, HUL, and others. The company hassecured over 5 million USD since its inception from Stellaris
Venture Partners, Google, and Pi Ventures. The startup competes with other companies in this sector such as Osense, Noogata, and Slang Labs.
Conclusion:
Recent reports showed that India’s Gnerative AI sector has been increasing rapidly. The country is home to more than 100 generative AI startups that have raised over 600 million USD in five years. India is home to around 1.4 lakh startups. The government of India has been launching several schemes in the past few years including different initiatives and backing schemes to promote the Indian startup ecosystem. India has around 115 unicorns and 112 unicorns making it the third in the largest startup ecosystem in the world.
The startup data intelligence platform, the kredible mentioned that in the last few months, more than half a dozen of early-stage Indian Gen AI startups were able to secure around $100 million in funding. SarvamAI, an early-stage startup raised 41 million USD in its funding round led by Lightspeed Ventures followed by Neysa raising 20 million USD in the Series A funding round and Ema raised $25 million.
Many other Gen AI startups including KonProz, Dubpro.ai, Ayna, and more secured a good amount of funds. The Global Generative Artificial Intelligence sector is predicted to grow at a huge CAGR in the next five years.
