HCLTech Leads $300 Million Funding for Sarvam AI, Elevating Valuation to $1.5 Billion: Report

HCLTech is set to lead a $300 million funding round in Bengaluru-based startup Sarvam AI with an investment of around $150 million, Moneycontrol reported. The round is expected to value Sarvam AI at approximately $1.5 billion post-money, potentially making it one of India’s most valuable homegrown artificial intelligence startups.

The report said venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners is likely to invest another $50 million, while the remaining $100 million is expected to come from a group of investors including NVIDIA, Prosperity7 Ventures, Activate, Glade Brook, and some existing backers. Sources familiar with the matter told Moneycontrol that discussions are at an advanced stage and the deal could close in the coming weeks. 

If completed, the investment could be considered a rare move, made by an Indian IT services company into a domestic AI startup. Industry observers see the move as a strategic shift for legacy IT firms as generative AI and automation increasingly reshape outsourcing, software development, and enterprise services businesses. 

The proposed funding round is also expected to be the largest private-market funding deal for an Indian AI startup this year. Sarvam AI had previously raised about $41 million in a seed and Series A round in 2023 from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Peak XV Partners, and Khosla Ventures.

Founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, Sarvam AI is a leading company advancing India’s AI initiatives. The startup focuses on developing large language models, multilingual AI systems, and voice-based tools tailored for Indian languages and enterprise needs. Earlier this year, it open-sourced its Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B models, which were trained on government-supported infrastructure.

Presented at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, these models serve as India-centric alternatives to global systems like ChatGPT and Gemini, optimised for Indian languages, local contexts, and speech interactions.