Indian generative AI startup Krutrim has attained unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation after raising $50 million in a funding round led by Matrix Partners India. Krutrim has built a foundational large language model (LLM) called Krutrim Base that can operate in English and multiple Indian languages.

Krutrim AI

Krutrim launched in 2021, unveiling its LLM last month after training it on over two trillion tokens of data in Indian languages. The funding will support Krutrim’s global expansion goals and mission to revolutionize India’s AI landscape. The company claims to be the fastest-ever startup in India to reach a unicorn-level valuation. The startup’s LLM is designed to handle interactions of all kinds and can discuss topics like poetry, movies, and food.

“India has to build its own AI, and at [Krutrim], we are fully committed towards building the country’s first complete AI computing stack. We are thrilled to announce the successful closure of our first funding round, which not only validates the potential of [Krutrim’s] innovative AI solutions but also underscores the confidence investors have in our ability to drive meaningful change out of India for the world,” Krutrim founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said in a statement. “As we embark on this exciting journey, we are proud to contribute to the vision of ‘Viksit Bharat’, where innovation and technological prowess will propel our nation towards reclaiming its status of the ‘Vishwaguru.’”

Krutrim, which means artificial in Sanskrit, is currently developing Krutrim Pro, a more advanced multimodal LLM, as well as conversational AI assistants in regional languages. Krutrim also aims to build out AI infrastructure, including indigenous data centers, servers, and supercomputers. A chatbot built on the base LLM will be available in beta starting in February, with APIs for enterprises to follow.

India’s generative AI scene is still relatively young, but Krutrim isn’t the first startup to see possibilities in LLMs trained in the region’s languages. Sarvam AI raised $41 million to pursue that goal. Sarvam AI’s founders are also behind the open-source Indian language AI AI4Bharat. India has been keen on AI on a broad scale for years now, with Indian supermarket chain JioMart relying more and more on its WhatsApp chatbot, while the national government funded the creation of an AI voice assistant to help citizens carry out tasks.

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