Krutrim, supported by Ola, achieves the distinction of becoming India's inaugural AI startup to attain Unicorn status through a $50 million funding round.

Krutrim, an AI startup founded by serial entrepreneur Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder of Ola Electric, has achieved unicorn status, securing an impressive $50 million in funding, with Matrix Partners India as one of the investors. Notably, this milestone comes just a month after the company introduced a significant language model. Krutrim, meaning "artificial" in Sanskrit, proudly declares itself as the first Indian AI startup to reach a billion-dollar valuation. The company has shared plans to expand beyond language models, delving into the development of data centers. The long-term vision includes creating servers and supercomputers dedicated to serving the evolving needs of the AI ecosystem.

The competition to build large language models in Indian languages, referred to as Indic LLMs, has intensified among various Indian startups and academic groups, spurred by the unveiling of OpenAI's ChatGPT over a year ago. Countries globally, including India, are actively pursuing the development of indigenous AI systems to reduce dependence on technology from major players like the US and China.

In Europe, significant investments are being directed towards Mistral AI in France, valued at $2 billion since its establishment last year. The United Arab Emirates is also promoting its Falcon model, supported by an Abu Dhabi government research institute. With a population of 1.4 billion, India aims to construct smaller, more cost-efficient AI systems. Sarvam, a generative AI startup, recently launched OpenHathi, its first open-source Hindi LLM, utilizing available open-source models. This announcement closely followed a successful funding round that raised $41 million from investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, billionaire Vinod Khosla, and others.

Founder Bhavish Aggarwal, known for establishing the Indian ride-hailing startup Ola, stressed the crucial need for India to independently develop its AI capabilities. Aggarwal stated, "India has to build its own AI," emphasizing the commitment to building the country's first complete AI computing stack.