Google, Lightspeed to Host AI Sprint for India’s Consumer Tech & Fintech Startups

Google for Startups and Lightspeed are set to host a full-day AI workshop for India’s venture-backed startups, bringing founders and technology leaders together to build AI applications using Google’s Gemini and Vertex AI platforms.

The Google for Startups Sprint, powered by Lightspeed, will take place on September 23 at Google’s office in Gurugram. The programme is aimed at Seed to Series B startups in the consumer technology and fintech sectors, with a focus on moving AI projects from experimentation to deployment.

Unlike a conventional startup conference, the programme is designed around live implementation. Participating founders and CTOs will work with Google’s AI and engineering teams on architecture, infrastructure and agentic AI use cases, while Lightspeed will focus on the business and economic considerations involved in scaling AI products.

The Google-led track will cover areas including cloud infrastructure, high-traffic scalability and real-time fraud detection. Participants will also work with Google’s templates and engineering resources to explore how Gemini and Vertex AI can be integrated into existing products and workflows.

The programme will also focus on AI agents. Startups will have the opportunity to build applications such as commerce agents for hyperlocal transactions and financial agents for automated KYC and credit assessment.

For fintech startups, the sessions are expected to address use cases around fraud detection, digital lending and credit workflows. Consumer technology companies, meanwhile, will explore applications spanning commerce, customer experiences and personalised interactions.

Lightspeed’s role will centre on the economics of deploying AI at scale. The venture capital firm will examine areas such as customer acquisition costs, margins, repeat usage and sustainable growth—issues that become increasingly important as startups move AI applications into production and absorb higher computing and infrastructure costs.

The programme comes as Indian startups increasingly shift their AI strategies from experimentation towards deployment. Rather than simply adding generative AI features to existing products, startups are exploring AI agents that can execute multi-step tasks across customer service, commerce, finance and operations.

The Sprint is therefore positioned around three areas: AI architecture, venture economics and execution. The organisers say participants should leave with an AI architecture and strategy that can be taken beyond a workshop environment.

The programme is open to founders and CTOs from Seed to Series B companies in consumer tech and fintech with the technical capabilities required to work with APIs and advanced AI architectures. Each startup can send a maximum of two CXOs, with both required to register individually using their official business email addresses.