Sarvam AI, a startup based in Chennai that began in July and specializes in developing its proprietary generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) models, has secured $41 million in a Series A funding round. Lightspeed Venture Partners led this initial funding round, joined by Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India and Southeast Asia) and Khosla Ventures, an early investor in OpenAI, according to a statement from Sarvam AI. This achievement marks the most substantial funding at this stage for an artificial intelligence startup based in India. Vivek Raghavan, one of the co-founders, mentioned, "We are creating training models. In the coming weeks, we'll introduce our first model designed for Indian languages".

"Our primary objective is to tailor generative AI to suit India's context, providing solutions that contribute value to the country. While many are focused on developing larger models heading toward artificial general intelligence, that isn't our primary area of focus", he mentioned. Raghavan further explained that the company is exploring the concept that a substantial part of the worth in Gen AI comes from domain-specific models. In this realm, there's potential for more intelligent, smaller, and equally efficient models to execute tasks.

Sarvam AI's immediate priorities involve training artificial intelligence models to accommodate various Indian languages and prioritize voice-first interfaces. Additionally, the company aims to collaborate with Indian enterprises to jointly construct AI models tailored to specific domains using their data. Raghavan, who has previously advised the Indian government on projects like the Unique Identification Authority of India, Unified Payments Interface, and Goods and Services Tax portal, shared his past engagements. His co-founder, Pratyush Kumar, also initiated a research endeavor named AI4Bharat, focusing on open-source Indian language AI, situated at the IIT Madras campus where Sarvam AI operates. Raghavan mentioned plans to expand their presence with an office in Bengaluru.