Sarvam AI, an Indian startup specializing in Generative AI, has successfully raised $41 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed, with significant participation from Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures. The five-month-old company, co-founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, aims to address India’s unique requirements in language diversity and voice-first interfaces through its innovative approach to Generative AI.
Sarvam AI’s primary focus lies in the development of a comprehensive Generative AI full-stack, covering research-led innovations in training custom AI models to providing an enterprise-grade platform for authoring and deployment. The startup’s strategy is to accelerate the adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) in India, particularly among enterprises struggling to harness its potential for their businesses.
The company plans to leverage its expertise in large language models (LLMs) to support Indian languages effectively. In a statement, Vivek Raghavan emphasized the need to change existing open models’ architecture and train them in custom ways to understand and generate Indian languages more efficiently than existing LLMs. Sarvam AI is also working on incorporating voice as the default interface, catering specifically to the Indian market’s requirements.
“I have seen firsthand the enormous value in innovating at foundational layers and deploying at population scale. India has demonstrated that it can harness technology differently, and with GenAI, we have an opportunity to reimagine how this technology can add value to people’s lives,” said Vivek Raghavan.
The funding round comes at a crucial time when global investors are actively seeking opportunities in AI breakthroughs. Despite India’s significant presence in the startup ecosystem, the country has yet to make a substantial impact in the rapidly advancing AI arena. Sarvam AI aims to change this narrative by developing deep expertise in building AI tailored for India.
Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed, praised Sarvam AI’s unique approach, combining model innovation and application development to build “population-scale” solutions for India. The startup plans to unveil its first model to the public in the coming weeks.
“We see several countries having sovereign efforts to build GenAI models given its strategic importance. We need companies like Sarvam AI to develop deep expertise for building AI in and for India,” remarked Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures.
Sarvam AI’s successful funding round follows a trend of generative AI startups securing early-stage investments, signaling a growing interest in the potential of AI applications across various industries.