Bhavish Aggarwal’s Krutrim in talks to raise $300 Mn

Entrackr · 1d

Bengaluru-based Krutrim AI Labs is working to build a complete AI ecosystem for India, with plans to take on global players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Krutrim SI Design, the AI venture of Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, is reportedly in talks to raise $300 million in a new funding round. This would be the first funding for the Bengaluru-based startup since it entered the unicorn club in January last year. Mint noted that Krutrim initially aimed to raise $500 million but later scaled down the round due to limited interest from investors. The report also mentioned that Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and SBI Capital Markets are the bankers managing the funding round. Krutrim has raised approximately $75 million and joined the unicorn club in January 2024. Its investors include Z47 (formerly Matrix), the Sarin Family, and others. In December last year, Aggarwal pledged his Ola Electric shares to secure debt funding through debenture issuance for Krutrim. "Ola does not comment on speculation," a company spokesperson was quoted as saying. Earlier this year, Aggarwal announced the launch of Krutrim AI Labs, aimed at developing artificial intelligence specifically for India. As part of the initiative, he committed an initial investment of Rs 2,000 crore, with plans to scale it up to Rs 10,000 crore by next year. Krutrim AI Labs is working to build a complete AI ecosystem for India, with plans to take on global players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. The company is developing several AI models, including Krutrim-2 (a next-gen language model), Chitrarth 1 (for images and text), Dhwani 1 (for speech), and Vyakhyarth 1 (focused on Indian languages). As part of its plan, Krutrim is also building India’s largest AI supercomputer using NVIDIA’s GB200 chips to boost the country’s AI and cloud infrastructure.