Funding downpour for Indian AI startups; Rs 100 Cr push for pre-seed funding
Investors focus on rapidly expanding AI applications and concrete use cases spanning enterprise IT solutions, PaaS and agentic AI. Aviral Bhatnagar’s A Junior VC closes its first Rs 100 crore fund.
Hello,
Knock knock! There’s a special delivery for NASA … on the moon!
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander, carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA, successfully touched down on the moon—a boost for companies looking to kickstart business on our celestial neighbour.
An upright and stable landing makes Firefly the first private company to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over—a feat where even countries have failed, with only five claiming success: Russia, the US, China, India, and Japan.
The stars, meanwhile, are here in Hollywood, and they’re all wondering about the same thing: Who is going to snag those coveted golden statuettes at the 97th Academy Awards?
The Oscars are set to promise nail-biting tension, with no clear frontrunner for best picture among Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, and other movie contenders.
Academy pundits expect either Timothée Chalamet or Adrien Brody to walk away with Best Actor, while Demi Moore could bag her first Oscar for The Substance.
ICYMI: From iconic speeches and historic wins to unforgettable gaffes, the nearly century-long run of the Academy Awards has had quite a few memorable moments.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Funding downpour for Indian AI startups
- A Rs 100 Cr push for pre-seed funding
Here’s your trivia for today: Which 1970s sci-fi film featured a spaceship named “Nostromo”?
Artificial Intelligence
Funding downpour for Indian AI startups
It has been almost three years since OpenAI launched the revolutionary ChatGPT tool, and the AI hype couldn’t have been any greater. Adding to the charm are China’s DeepSeek and OpenAI’s colossal $500 billion Stargate Project, which have increased the appetite of investors who are not shying away from pouring millions of dollars into AI startups.
Meanwhile, in India, investors are more interested in rapidly expanding AI applications and concrete use cases—spanning enterprise IT solutions, PaaS (platform-as-a-service), and agentic AI, as the country charts its course for its own foundational model.
Bullish views:
- According to a report by AI investment fund SenseAI Ventures, almost 65% of startups are building AI applications. Startups leveraging AI to automate enterprise workflows and IT service management, including SuperOps, Atomicwork, TrueFoundry, and Cognida.ai, are securing the bulk of investments.
- Prioritising AI applications over LLMs will enable Indian startups to do more with fewer resources and scale globally, according to Atomicwork’s Rayapati. India’s population is a key asset, driving long-term growth opportunities in the AI services sector, believes Bessemer Venture Partners’ Anant Vidur Puri.
- Z47’s Desai sees the industry witnessing a “once-in-a-20-year” market transformation driven by AI, where new markets are getting built. In fact, many startups launched post-ChatGPT, he says, are now scaling and raising follow-on capital, including portfolio companies such as Atomicwork and Aampe.
Funding
A Rs 100 Cr push for pre-seed funding
Former Venture Highway investor Aviral Bhatnagar’s A Junior VC (AJVC) has set its sights on the pre-seed funding stage in India through its first Rs 100 crore fund–an area which he believes remains largely untapped in the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem.
Bhatnagar said that the sector-agnostic fund would be looking to invest in 12-15 companies in the pre-seed stage every year across emerging sectors such as AI, and other trending technologies like SaaS (software-as-a-service), and consumer technology.
Domestic capital:
- Limited partners in the fund consist largely of family offices in India, founders, high-net-worth individuals, and leaders in larger conglomerates or investment firms, Bhatnagar told YourStory. Domestic capital makes up the majority of the fund’s money pot with only 10% of foreign invested capital.
- AJVC has already made nine investments—five in AI, two investments in direct-to-consumer brands, one in business-to-business, and one in consumer tech.
- Amidst the growing global interest in AI, Bhatnagar said the firm is not looking to invest in startups building foundational AI models, although it might look to invest in startups that are involved in the early stage set-up of AI, and is bullish on deeptech.
News & updates
- Probe: US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a new trade investigation that could heap more tariffs on imported lumber, adding to existing duties on Canadian softwood lumber and 25% tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican goods due next week.
- Expansion: Samsung Electronics is expanding its range of devices supporting new artificial intelligence features with updated models in its more affordable A series.
Which 1970s sci-fi film featured a spaceship named “Nostromo”?
Answer: Alien.
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