In a remarkable achievement, Krutrim, an AI startup founded by Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder of Ola, has reached unicorn status with a valuation of $1 billion. The startup, established just last year, proudly claims to be the fastest Indian company to achieve unicorn status and the first Indian AI startup to do so.
Matrix Partners India, a supporter of Aggarwal’s previous ventures (Ola and Ola Electric), led the impressive $50 million funding round for Krutrim. The startup, called “Krutrim,” which means “artificial” in Sanskrit, is creating a language system that can understand both Indian languages and English. Krutrim is gearing up to introduce a voice-enabled conversational AI assistant capable of understanding and speaking multiple Indian languages.
The ambitious startup plans to release a beta version of its chatbot next month for consumers, with subsequent plans to provide APIs to developers and enterprises. Notably, Krutrim aims to develop in-house capabilities for manufacturing AI-optimized chips, aligning with Aggarwal’s exploration into chip development, as reported earlier.
Investing in Krutrim is part of a worldwide trend, as investors are eager for AI breakthroughs that can revolutionize different industries. Even with a big startup scene, India has not made a big impact in AI yet. Krutrim’s success shows a rising belief in India’s ability to shine in the field of AI.
In a landscape dominated by giants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Amazon-backed Anthropic and Google’s Bard, Krutrim emerges as a promising contender. As AI competition heats up around the world, Krutrim becoming a unicorn quickly marks a new chapter for AI in India. The startup is set on making a big difference in AI computing.
