Krutrim SI Designs, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup founded by Ola chairman Bhavish Aggarwal, has become the first Indian AI unicorn after raising $ 50 million in funding from Matrix Partners India, underscoring investor confidence in its transformative approach to AI computing.
This significant funding injection aims to propel Krutrim’s global expansion plans and accelerate its mission to reshape the AI landscape. Matrix Partners India, a key supporter of Aggarwal’s previous ventures, Ola Cabs and Ola Electric, spearheaded this funding endeavor.
“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,” said Bhavish Aggarwal in a statement.
Revolutionizing AI Computing Stack
Krutrim, which translates to “artificial” in Sanskrit, distinguishes itself by focusing on building the entire AI computing stack. The company unveiled its flagship multilingual large language models (LLM), Krutrim and Krutrim Pro, in December 2023. The Pro model, set to launch in Q4 FY 2024, is a groundbreaking multimodal AI with advanced problem-solving capabilities across text, audio, image, and video formats.
Trained on an extensive 2 trillion tokens of data, with a notable representation of Indian data, Krutrim’s AI models understand 22 Indian languages and generate text in 10 languages. The company asserts that its models outperform many open-source LLMs, surpassing OpenAI’s GPT-4 in Indic language performance per industry benchmarks.
“Bhavish (Aggarwal) has consistently brought cutting edge tech innovation to India at scale with Ola and Ola Electric – and now excitingly with Krutrim to power the journey of ‘Viksit Bharat’ digitally,” said Avnish Bajaj, founder and managing director, Matrix Partners India.
Conversational AI Assistant and API Access
Krutrim will introduce a conversational AI assistant, akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, in beta version for consumers in February 2024. This assistant will fluently understand and speak multiple Indian languages. Krutrim’s AI models will also be available as an API for enterprises and developers, with a unique “India-first cost structure.”
Operating as a separate entity within the Ola Group, Krutrim assures independence from data sourced from Ola’s cab business and Ola Electric for training its AI models. Plans are underway to integrate Krutrim across Ola Group companies by March 2024, leveraging its technology for sales, service, support, and key processes.
Silicon Development and Indigenous Data Centers
Beyond AI models, Krutrim aims to innovate in hardware, planning to design its chips and develop indigenous data centers. The company is also venturing into AI infrastructure, with prototypes expected in mid-2024 and a production roadmap set for the end of 2025.
Bhavish Aggarwal expressed confidence in Krutrim’s potential to drive meaningful change globally, emphasizing the validation from investors. As the first AI unicorn of 2024, Krutrim stands at the forefront of AI innovation aiming to revolutionize the industry with its comprehensive approach to AI computing.
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