Recently, the AI startup boom in India is in full swing. In just the past six months, 43 Indian AI startups have secured a staggering $864 million in funding. Investment firm Antler has announced plans to invest $10 million in early-stage AI startups, with partner Rajiv Srivatsa emphasizing on social media: "Now is the best time to start a company!"
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At Google's recent I/O Connect Bengaluru2024 event, Google also introduced a series of new initiatives to promote AI development in India. This includes a partnership with MeitY Startup Hub to train 10,000 startups. Additionally, Google announced 20 startups for its 2024 AI First Accelerator, selected from over 1,030 applications nationwide, covering industries such as gaming and manufacturing.
Not only the private sector, but the Indian government is also strongly supporting AI development. The US-India AI Initiative launched by IUSSTF aims to promote AI growth through thought exchange and cooperation in key areas such as energy, health, and agriculture. Moreover, India plans to collaborate with chip manufacturing giant NVIDIA to procure up to 10,000 GPUs and NPUs to reduce hardware costs for local startups and research institutions.
In terms of funding, Bengaluru-based enterprise AI startup Ema secured $36 million in Series A funding, while Simplismart also successfully raised $7 million, showing strong investor interest in these companies. More excitingly, Krutrim backed by Ola became India's first AI unicorn, raising $50 million.
In terms of mergers and acquisitions, Protect AI acquired Bengaluru's SydeLabs for $25 million to enhance the security of its large language models. Meanwhile, C5i also acquired Analytic Edge to further strengthen its AI-driven market and sales solutions. In terms of cooperation, CoRover.ai partnered with EthosAI.one to benchmark BharatGPT in the industry to ensure its competitiveness in accuracy and reliability.
It can be said that the AI startup environment in India is becoming increasingly vibrant, with funding and policy support giving entrepreneurs in this field confidence.
Key Points:
🌟 In the past six months, 43 Indian AI startups have secured $864 million in funding, showing a surge in investment.
🤖 Google and the Indian government are actively promoting AI development, introducing training programs and funding support, and improving infrastructure.
🚀 Krutrim backed by Ola has become the first Indian AI unicorn, with market competition intensifying.