Sarvam AI, a five-month-old Indian startup, has recently emerged from stealth mode and secured an impressive $41 million in funding. The funding, raised across both Seed and Series A financing rounds, was led by Lightspeed and saw participation from prominent investors such as Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners.
Key Takeaway
Indian AI startup Sarvam AI has raised $41 million in funding to expand its suite of full-stack generative AI offerings. The startup is focused on building large language models that support Indian languages and aims to customize these models to prioritize voice as the default interface. With this investment, Sarvam AI hopes to become a leading player in India’s AI landscape and fulfill the growing demand for quality AI solutions.
Building AI Solutions for Indian Languages
Headquartered in Bengaluru, Sarvam AI is focusing on the development of large language models (LLMs) that support Indian languages. According to Vivek Raghavan, Co-founder of Sarvam AI, the startup is also creating a platform that enables businesses to build using LLMs. This platform will encompass various stages of app development, deployment, observation, and custom evaluation.
Sarvam AI recognizes the importance of catering to the Indian market’s specific requirements. To achieve this, the startup is actively investing in building LLMs that prioritize voice as the default interface. By customizing existing open models and training them in new languages, Sarvam AI aims to create highly efficient models for understanding and generating Indian languages.
Founders with Strong AI Backgrounds
Sarvam AI was founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, who both previously worked at Microsoft-backed nonprofit AI4Bharat. Raghavan brings a wealth of experience from his decade-long stint at UIDAI, where he was involved in the development and deployment of the Aadhaar identification system.
Raghavan believes that innovative AI solutions have the potential to revolutionize society. He stated, “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.”
Enabling AI Advancements in India
While India harbors one of the world’s largest startup ecosystems, it has yet to make significant strides in the rapidly advancing field of AI. Challenges from large language model giants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Amazon-backed Anthropic, and Google’s Bard have yet to be met by a homegrown Indian contender. Sarvam AI’s latest funding round reflects a growing recognition of the need for deep expertise in building AI solutions tailored to India’s unique context.
