Building Sovereign AI at Scale

Bengaluru-based Sarvam AI has officially achieved unicorn status, closing a $234 million Series B round at a $1.5 billion post-money valuation. The round, which is expected to total $300 million upon full close, was led by HCLTech, marking a significant strategic investment in the Indian AI ecosystem.

Strategic Investor Backing

HCLTech spearheaded the round with a $150 million commitment for a 10.46% stake. The raise also saw participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, with continued support from existing backers Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners.

Traction and Operational Scale

Founded by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, Sarvam has carved a niche by developing foundational models specifically optimized for Indian languages. Key metrics include:

  • Over 2 million daily interactions on its conversational AI platform.
  • More than 10 million API calls processed daily via its inference infrastructure.
  • Large-scale public sector impact, including engagement with 17 million farmers and support for 45 million insurance policy renewals.

Future Roadmap

The company plans to deploy the capital to focus on three critical pillars:

  • Advanced Research: Developing next-generation frontier models with a focus on agentic AI, coding, and cybersecurity.
  • Compute Infrastructure: Scaling the hardware and cloud capabilities necessary to run these models.
  • Enterprise Deployment: Expanding the ‘sovereign AI’ template for banking, government, and defence sectors to enable organizations to own and operate their own AI stacks.