Indian artificial intelligence company Sarvam AI said Monday it has raised $234 million as part of a broader targeted funding round, as it looks to roll out models that can challenge Chinese and American competitors.
The artificial intelligence startup caused a stir in the world’s most populous country this year when it released two large language models that it said had been trained from scratch in India.
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Its models are designed to work across 22 Indian languages and can be accessed through voice commands, which it hopes will give it an edge against global competitors.
Sarvam AI said in a statement that it had raised $234 million “in the first close of its $300 million Series B,” giving it a valuation of $1.5 billion.
Indian IT giant HCLTech and venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners invested in the current round, which also included existing investors Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures.
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“We will do our best at every layer of the company, but the thing that excites me the most now is our quest to build first-class AI systems from India,” co-founder Pratosh Kumar said in a statement.
He added: “A country the size of India cannot rent intelligence. We have to build it ourselves.”
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So-called sovereign AI has become a priority for countries that hope to reduce their dependence on US and Chinese platforms while ensuring that the systems respect local regulations, including data privacy.
