Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal’s ‘Krutrim’ becomes India’s first AI startup to become a Unicorn

Krutrim, the brainchild of Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, has achieved unicorn status by securing $50 million in funding from investors, including Matrix Partners India.

This milestone makes Krutrim the first Indian AI startup to attain a billion-dollar valuation, just one month after unveiling a significant language model, as revealed in a company blog post.

The term "Krutrim," meaning "artificial" in Sanskrit, signifies the company's foray into developing data centers, with future plans to manufacture servers and supercomputers for the AI ecosystem.

In response to the growing demand for large language models in Indian languages, known as Indic LLMs, several Indian startups and academic groups are racing to develop their own versions.

This trend gained momentum following the introduction of OpenAI's ChatGPT over a year ago. The objective is to establish autonomous AI systems within their respective countries, reducing dependence on technology from the United States or China. India, with its vast population of 1.4 billion, is strategically focusing on constructing more compact and cost-effective AI systems.

Bhavish Aggarwal, expressing his commitment to the cause, stated in a statement that, "India has to build its own AI. We are fully dedicated to constructing the country’s inaugural comprehensive AI computing stack."