Indian AI Startups, You Must Know About: Right now, we are living in the AI era. From small industries to big corporations, everyone is talking about AI. Artificial intelligence is slowly becoming an important part of human lives because of how easy it makes everyone’s work. Whether it be the entertainment world or the working ecosystem, AI is present everywhere and of course, it comes with its own pros and cons.
Here are 6 A.I. Indian companies that a user should know about. These 6 companies are amazing, innovative, and reaching out in every direction, whether it is the beauty sector or the music industry.
6 Indian AI startups that you should know about
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Orbo.AI
Orbo AI is a Mumbai-based visual intelligence company founded in 2015 by Abhit Sinha, Manoj Shinde, and Danish Jami. It is an AI and computer-based technology company.
Beauty GPT is Orbo AI’s well-known AI tool that provides personalized reviews for skin and makeup-related questions. It also gives a customized look for the user’s selfie, for different occasions. This is not it, the AI provides information about the products that users can use to recreate the look.
India learned more about this company through the show Shark Tank India. The co-founders presented their revolutionary AI tool as a game-changer in Season 3, Episode 20, with an ask of ₹1 crore for 0.75% equity at a valuation of ₹133.3 crore. They accepted an offer from Veenta of ₹1 crore for 1% equity.
When they presented their product Beauty GPT on the show, it had not yet been launched. Their only available products were the do-it-yourself modules, which were an advanced version.
They created five modules for the Beauty AI stack, which contains: Virtual makeup try-on, Deep skin analysis, Hairstyle try-on, Hair color try-on, and Foundation shade finder These products are already being sold.
Their do-it-yourself products are used by both offline and online stores.
In their pre-series A round in 2020, they raised ₹11 crores at a company valuation of ₹55 crores. Further in 2022, they raised ₹63 crores at a company valuation of ₹60 crores. The total amount raised was ₹26 crores.
Refex Capital, their existing investor, also took part in their funding. In one of their funding rounds, they raised 1.6 million in their pre-series round. The round was led by YourNest Ventures and Venture Catalysts. Other participants included Vinod Dham, who developed Intel’s Pentium microprocessor, and John Ason, an investor in Jet.com (which was sold to Walmart).
It is a subscription-based app that charges 20 paise per try-on and ₹30,000 per month per mirror for retail shops.
The company’s monthly revenue is expected to ₹18 lakhs currently.
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Krutrim A.I
The name Krutrim means “artificial” in Sanskrit. Called India’s indigenous A.I., Ola’s Krutrim was established in April 2023. This business is co-founded by Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO of Ola, and Krishnamurthy Venugopala Tenneti, a board member of Ola and Ola Electric’s parent company, ANI Technologies.
Ola describes Krutrim as “envisioned to be your own personalised assistant, which can simplify your personal and professional life by getting a variety of tasks done for you, while keeping the aesthetic sense and sensibilities of the Indian ethos.” They also are calling it India’s own AI.
Krutrim became one of the three unicorns made by Bhavish Aggarwal, the co-founder of Ola Cabs. In 2024, Krutrim became a unicorn, making it the first India-made AI firm to achieve this status. It raised millions at a valuation of billion in a funding round led by venture capital fund Matrix Partners India. Details about the funding round are limited.
In the previous October, it also raised millions in debt from Matrix Partners. Matrix Partners is an investor in Aggarwal’s ventures, including Ola and the electric two-wheeler maker, Ola Electric.
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Sarvam A.I.
Founded in July 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, who have also worked at AI4 Bharat, Sarvam AI is an A.I. technology that uses advanced AI models for Indian languages.
The Chennai headquartered- based company has partnered with Microsoft to bring its Indic Voice Large Model to the Azure platform.
After just five months in business, Sarvam AI raised in its Series A funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Other notable participants in the funding round included Peak XV Partners (formerly known as Sequoia India and Southeast Asia) and Khosla Ventures, according to Sarvam AI.
This made Sarvam A.I. the largest fundraising company for an Indian- based artificial business. It has raised a total funding of 53 Million.
The company also has seed funding which was also co-led by Lightspeed Venture And PeakXV Partners. Out of 4.1 million, the seed round includes 12 million.
Their latest shareholder details are- Majority of its shares belong to founder-49.21%, fund-38.26%, angel-0.33%, and ESOP Pool-12.28%.
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Beatoven A.I.
Beatoven AI is India’s first AI-backed music technology company that uses AI generation techniques to create music for different purposes. Founded in 2021 by IIIT-Allahabad graduates, Siddharth Bhardwaj, and Mansoor Rahimat Khan. Business could be a game-changer in the industry as this Bengaluru-based company provides a platform for music makers to make their own beats and tracks that are royalty-free.
The pre-series round was led by its existing backers, including Capital 2B, IvyCap Ventures, Upsparks Capital, Rukam Capital, and other angel investors. The company’s total funding is 2.42 million and is valued at 8.27 million as of March 1, 2024. It has an annual revenue of $21.4k as of March 31, 2024. The company is still in the stage of seed.
Founders of Beatoven hold the majority of it shares with 51.14%, 38.8% held by funds, enterprises have 0.15%, angel investor 0.034%, and other investors have 1.09%.
Unscript A.I.
Unscript AI was founded in 2021 by Ritwika Chowdhury(CEO), Akhil Menon(ex-Co-Founder), Apurv Jain, and Rupali Chowdhury(Additional Director). Unscript works in the enterprise tech sector and is said to be the future of video production as it allows users to create thousands of personalized videos in real-time with face and voice. It is an early-stage deep-tech company.
The company has Exfinity Venture Partners and Stellaris Venture Partners as its investor partners. It raised 1.25 million in its latest funding(September 1, 2022) which was led by Exfinity Venture with participation from Stellaris Venture Partners, Ghazal Alagh, Mankind Pharma promoter’s family office, Endurance Capital (AngelList), and other angel investors.
When it comes to existing shareholders in the company, founders have the majority of shares(as of September 1, 2022) with 64.58%, funds 21.90%, Enterprise 3.51%, Angel investors1.93%, and ESOP Pool 8.07%.
The company is valued at 6.79 million.
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Models Lab
Founded in October 2022 by tech entrepreneur Adik Joshi, Models Labs is a platform that provides APIs making it easy for businesses to create visual-related content. It makes the process simple for the businnes and offers various applications.
Rather than going to different AI services and subscribing to them, users can find everything they need on Models Labs. The platform has generated 800 million images, and even though it currently offers only a premium plan, it has already signed up over 150,000 users.
Model Labs is still relatively new in this market, so further information about the company is not yet available.
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