Ola founder’s Krutrim becomes India’s first AI unicorn

Bengaluru: Krutrim, an artificial intelligence startup founded by Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal, on Friday became India’s first AI unicorn and the first one to enter the coveted unicorn club in 2024 after raising $50 million at a valuation of $1 billion.

“We are thrilled to announce the successful closure of our first funding round, which not only validates the potential of Krutrim’s innovative AI solutions but also underscores the confidence investors have in our ability to drive meaningful change out of India for the world,” Aggarwal said in a statement.

A startup attains unicorn status upon reaching a valuation of $1 billion or more.

The investment round was led by Matrix Partners India, an early backer of Aggarwal's other ventures Ola Cabs and the IPO-bound Ola Electric. The funds secured will be channeled towards “accelerating the company’s mission to revolutionise the AI landscape, drive innovation and expand its reach globally,” the company said.

This comes after Generative AI startup Sarvam AI, Launched by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, raised $41 million in a Series A round in early December last year. Many see this as an early indication of Indian AI startups gaining rising traction amongst the global investor community.

“Once you’ve figured out the major languages in India, there are several countries out there where it can be replicated, not necessarily the English-speaking countries,” president of TiE Bangalore, Madan Padaki, said.

“The beauty about the emerging AI startup world is that startups are now conceptualising a variety of products using AI. I think that’s the critical difference here - when the skill base is the same but the lens you apply in the business model you look at are vastly different,” Padaki underscored.

Krutrim, which unveiled its base large language model (LLM) last month, powers generative AI applications for Indian languages. “Krutrim will be available in beta version for consumers in February 2024. Additionally, it will also be available as an API (application programming interface) for enterprises and developers, seeking to create AI applications,” the company said.

While at a nascent stage, India has over 100 generative AI startups today. According to data present in the public domain, the overall GenAI market in the country is expected to surpass $17 billion by 2030, from $1.1 billion presently.

Furthermore, India, which ranks third globally in terms of unicorn count, is home to 110-plus startups with a combined valuation of over $340 billion.