HCLTech is reportedly planning to lead a $300 million funding round in Bengaluru-based AI startup Sarvam AI, according to a report by Moneycontrol. The company is expected to invest around $150 million, and the deal could value Sarvam AI at nearly $1.5 billion after the funding round. If the investment is finalised, Sarvam AI could become one of India’s most valuable AI startups.
The report said venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners may invest another $50 million, while the remaining funding is expected to come from investors such as NVIDIA, Prosperity7 Ventures, Activate, Glade Brook Capital Partners, along with some existing investors. Sources familiar with the matter told the publication that talks are in the final stages and the deal may close in the coming weeks.
If completed, the investment would be seen as an unusual but important move by an Indian IT services company into the country’s growing AI startup ecosystem. Industry experts believe traditional IT firms are now looking more seriously at generative AI as the technology continues to change software development and enterprise services.
The funding round is also expected to be the biggest private investment in an Indian AI startup this year. Sarvam AI had previously raised around $41 million in seed and Series A funding in 2023 from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Peak XV Partners, and Khosla Ventures.
Founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, Sarvam AI focuses on building large language models, multilingual AI systems, and voice tools designed for Indian users and businesses. Earlier this year, the startup open-sourced its Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B AI models, which were trained using government-supported infrastructure.
The models were presented at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi as India-focused alternatives to AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. They are designed to better support Indian languages, local use cases, and voice interactions.
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