recent,IndiaThe AI startup boom is in full swing. In the past six months alone, 43 Indian AI startups have raised $864 million.FinancingThis number is jaw-dropping. Antler, an investment institution, announced that it would invest $10 million in early-stage AI startups. Partner Rajiv Srivatsa emphasized on social media: “Now is the best time to build a startup!”
At the I/O Connect Bengaluru 2024 event recently held by Google, Google also launched a series of new initiatives to promote the development of AI in India. This includes a partnership with MeitY Startup Hub to train 10,000 startups. In addition, Google also announced the 20 startups of the AI First accelerator in 2024, which were selected from more than 1,030 applications across the country, covering multiple industries such as games and manufacturing.
Not only the private sector, but also the Indian government is strongly supporting the development of AI. The US-India AI Initiative launched by IUSSTF aims to promote the growth of AI through exchange of ideas and cooperation in key areas such as energy, health and agriculture. In addition, India also plans to cooperate with chip manufacturing giant NVIDIA to purchase up to 10,000 GPUs and NPUs to reduce the hardware costs of local startups and research institutions.
In terms of funding, businesses in Bengaluru AI Startups Ema raised $36 million in Series A funding, while Simplismart raised $7 million, showing strong investor interest in these companies. More excitingly, Ola-backed Krutrim became India’s first AI startup to reach unicorn status, raising $50 million.
In terms of mergers and acquisitions, Protect AI acquired Bengaluru's SydeLabs for $25 million to improve the security of its large language models. At the same time, C5i also acquired Analytic Edge to further enhance its AI-driven marketing and sales solutions. In terms of cooperation, CoRover.ai cooperated with EthosAI.one to benchmark BharatGPT to ensure its competitiveness in accuracy and reliability.
It can be said that India's AI entrepreneurial environment is becoming more and more active, and the support of funds and policies makes entrepreneurs in this field full of confidence.