Nasscom, the apex body of the IT sector, announced on Thursday that 26 businesses have been selected for its inaugural ‘Generative AI Foundry’ initiative, which aims to develop domestic tech firms in the artificial intelligence (AI) space. Selected partners will invest up to $25 million in the most promising firms over the 12-month initiative, which is paired with more than 30 organizations from the business and financial sector.
Additionally, investors will offer assistance in a variety of ways, spurring development and creativity, according to Nasscom. “Unlocking the full potential of generative AI startups for India, and from India for the world, will not only require rigorous assessment of sustainable whitespace opportunities in various sectors, but will also require innovative thinking towards inviting patient capital and facilitating compute capabilities at scale,” said Debjani Ghosh, president of Nasscom.
Out of over 70 applications, the startups were chosen. The cohort’s average startup is two years old, and it has already secured funding totaling half a million dollars from institutional investors.
The firms provide solutions with compelling use cases for retail, media and entertainment, banking and financial services, and different enterprise operations that create text, voice, code, video/image, and multimodal output.
GitHub, Jio GenNext, Microsoft, Anthill Ventures, Broadridge, Capgemini, Centific, Chiratae Ventures, Cigniti, eClerx, Endiya Partners, Pavestone VC, Premji Invest, Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B), Silverneedle Ventures, Sutherland, and VOIS (Vodafone Intelligent Solutions) are a few of the program partners.
Startups will participate in intense boot camps and active mentorship sessions led by industry experts and investor mentors over the first six months.
They will be able to expedite their AI initiatives by gaining access to GPU computing nodes and state-of-the-art technology stacks.
As the program’s state partner, the Telangana government worked with startups to provide them with the chance to develop significant business-to-government (B2G) use cases.
More than 60 businesses in India’s generative AI space were committed to providing services and solutions to clients across a range of industry verticals.
According to Nasscom, over $590 million in funding has already poured into this area, with 2022 seeing the largest inflow of capital.
