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

EntrackrEntrackr · 2m ago
Bhavish Aggarwal’s Krutrim in talks to raise $300 Mn
Medial

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.

Bhavish Aggarwal pledges Ola Electric shares for Krutrim’s debt

EntrackrEntrackr · 7m ago
Bhavish Aggarwal pledges Ola Electric shares for Krutrim’s debt
Medial

Ola Electric’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal has pledged his Ola Electric shares to raise debt funding (via issuing debentures) for its artificial intelligence startup Krutrim SI Designs. Bhavish Aggarwal, the promoter, entered into an agreement with Axis Trustee and Krutrim Data Center Private Limited on November 23. The agreement aims to provide assurance regarding certain debentures issued by Krutrim Design, Ola Electric’s internal document accessed by Entrackr show. As per the document, Bhavish Aggarwal held 132.39 crore shares of Ola Electric, accounting for 30.02% of the company. He pledged 4.83 crore shares, representing 1.10% of Ola Electric's equity or 3.65% of his total shareholding, as an encumbrance. Entrackr has reached out to Ola Electric for more details. Artificial intelligence startup Krutrim SI Designs has raised around $75 million to date and entered into a coveted unicorn club this year. Its investors include Z47 (formerly Matrix), Sarin Family, and others. On Monday, Aggarwal revealed plans to open 4,000 Ola Electric stores in December. Ola Electric is currently trading at Rs 91.79 with a total market capitalization of 40,487 crore (approximately $4.82 billion). In Q2, Ola Electric recorded a 26% decline in its operating revenue to Rs 1, 214 crore when compared to Rs 1,644 crore in Q1 FY25. However, the firm registered 39% year-on-year increase in revenue from Rs 873 crore in Q2 FY24. The company posted a net loss of Rs 495 crore during the September quarter.

Bhavish Aggarwal launches Krutrim AI Labs with Rs 2,000 Cr investment

EntrackrEntrackr · 5m ago
Bhavish Aggarwal launches Krutrim AI Labs with Rs 2,000 Cr investment
Medial

Bhavish Aggarwal launches Krutrim AI Labs with Rs 2,000 Cr investment Ola’s founder and chief, Bhavish Aggarwal, has announced the launch of the Krutrim AI Labs to develop artificial intelligence specifically designed for India. As part of this initiative, he has committed an initial investment of Rs 2,000 crore, with a larger commitment of Rs 10,000 crore by next year. The funding will be used to establish the AI lab and develop advanced AI models tailored for Indian users. According to Aggarwal, Krutrim AI Lab will address challenges related to Indic languages, data scarcity, and cultural context. "While we’ve been working on AI for a year, today we’re releasing our work to the open-source community and also publishing a number of technical reports. Our focus is on developing AI for India—to improve AI for Indian languages, data scarcity, and cultural context," Aggarwal shared on X (formerly Twitter). As part of its open-source initiative, Krutrim is releasing multiple AI models, including Krutrim 2, an upgraded LLM; Chitrarth 1, a Vision Language Model; Dhwani 1, a Speech Language Model; Vyakhyarth 1, an Indic embedding model; and Krutrim Translate 1, a text-to-text translation model. Additionally, Krutrim has introduced BharatBench, a dedicated benchmark for evaluating Indic AI performance. Krutrim is also building India’s first GB200 AI supercomputer in partnership with NVIDIA. It is expected to be ready by March and aims to become India’s largest AI supercomputer by the end of the year. Aggarwal emphasised that while Krutrim has grown quickly in just a year, India still has a long way to go in AI. By open-sourcing its models, the company hopes to encourage collaboration and help build a strong AI ecosystem in India.

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