Founded: 2023
Founders: Vivek Raghavan (ex-Aadhaar, India Stack) and Pratyush Kumar (AI researcher)
Headquarters: Bengaluru, India
Funding: Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners ($41M raised in seed and Series A)
Overview:
Sarvam AI is an Indian deep-tech startup building foundation models (FMs) and generative AI solutions with a strong focus on Indian languages and local contexts. The company aims to make India a global leader in inclusive and culturally relevant AI, with models that support text and speech in multiple regional languages.
Mission:
To democratize access to generative AI by creating India-first LLMs that understand, speak, and respond in regional languages—bringing voice tech and AI innovation to the next billion users.
What Sarvam AI Does:
- Develops large language models (LLMs) trained on Indian vernaculars.
- Builds voice-first AI systems tailored for low-resource users.
- The company provides enterprise-grade APIs for NLP, text generation, translation, and conversational AI.
- Works closely with the Indian government and public digital infrastructure to scale AI for Bharat.
Key Focus Areas:
- Natural language processing (NLP)
- Generative AI
- Voice AI and speech recognition
- Multilingual support (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, etc.)
- Enterprise and public sector AI deployment
Use Cases:
- Voice assistants for rural governance and education
- Multilingual chatbots for businesses and customer support
- AI content creation in Indian languages
- Language translation tools for media, publishing, and e-commerce
- Inclusive digital interfaces for government services
Why Sarvam AI Stands Out
- India-first approach: Builds LLMs and voice models natively trained on Indian languages and cultural contexts.
- Voice-first technology: Focuses on speech-based AI to serve low-resource and non-English-speaking users.
- Public digital integration: Actively works with Indian government initiatives like India Stack to scale AI access for the masses.
- Inclusive innovation: Targets the “next billion users” with AI tools that are multilingual, accessible, and localized.
- Strong leadership and backing: Founded by experts behind Aadhaar and top AI research; raised $41M from Lightspeed Venture Partners.