10 Indian AI startups and products to watch out for

Mint

2 days ago

The landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) startups in India is a complex one. Although there may be rapid innovation, India risks falling behind its global peers in the race for worldwide dominance. Just a few days ago, Accel, a venture capital firm, warned that Indian AI startups risked falling behind global peers unless they were 'chasing scale aggressively". Accel partner Shekhar Kirani said, 'In the Valley, it's a warzone. Engineers are building, iterating, raising money, and chasing scale aggressively. In India, many still operate in peacetime mode, trying to optimise for capital efficiency, fixing bugs, and selling to five customers. That's not how you win this AI cycle." Basically, it's not all rosy for the Indian AI startup market.
Just take a look at the much-hyped Krutrim, an LLM launched by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal in December 2023. Krutrim's customer base has not grown rapidly for its LLMs and cloud products. It has also been plagued with several technical issues.
Then there was Builder.ai, previously known as Engineer.ai, a 'no-code AI-powered platform". Their ethos? Simplifying app development? Microsoft, the Qatar Investment Authority and others backed it. The reality, you ask? Builder.ai relied on around 700 human engineers who wrote code for client projects, which were presented as if they were AI-generated. Builder.ai, at its core, was a fraud company.
But there is also good work happening in the field of Indian AI. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Google are separately encouraging Indian AI startups to expand and have world-leading products. In 2024, Google announced its plan to train 10,000 AI startups in India. This was through a partnership with MeitY Startup Hub.
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Last month, 10 Indian AI startups—PrivaSapien Technologies, CoRover.ai, Staqu Technologies, SatSure Analytics, Storyvord, VolarAlta, Smartail, Secure Blink, NeuroPixel.AI, and Voicing AI—were selected for a global acceleration programme in Paris. This was part of the IndiaAI Startups Global Initiative, which is a MeitY effort in partnership with Station F and HEC Paris.
AI startups are expected to undergo rapid evolution over the next few years. But, at this point, a few well-established startups are leading the way. Let's check them out:
NeoSapien's Neo1
NeoSapien has come up with Neo1, India's first AI wearable, which claims to be a digital 'second brain" that captures conversations, tracks emotions, and serves as an AI companion that helps you in your daily life. It's a pendant-style AI wearable worn around the neck, priced at ₹9,999 (with a year of AI services bundled and ₹499 per month thereafter). This device wants to help organise your life, and as a bonus, it can even gauge your emotions. Neo1 currently has no direct competitor in the Indian market. As a promising product, and one that hasn't been widely adopted globally, can the pendant live up to all its promises? After all, it
Haptik
One of the leading players amongst the generative AI startups in the country is none other than Haptik. They have changed the game when it comes to business-to-customer interaction. Haptik specialises in conversational AI, including chatbots and virtual assistants, for providing real-time support and personalisation to customers. Haptik automates customer service by integrating AI, making it cost-efficient for the company. Haptik is used in e-commerce, telecommunications, banking and other sectors. To boil it down, Haptik offers companies a scalable way to manage customer interactions using no-code bots.
Sarvam AI
Sarvam AI was founded in July 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar. Their aim is simple. They aim to make Generative AI accessible at scale in India. Both founders met at AI4Bharat, a research initiative that focuses on open-source Indian language AI.
A few weeks ago, Sarvam unveiled its flagship Large Language Model (LLM), Sarvam-M. It's a 24-billion-parameter system and is based on a smaller model called Mistal Small. It's basically an intelligent AI assistant that can handle tasks ranging from math questions to responding in multiple Indian languages (10, to be precise).
Law Bot Pro
In 2023, then-final-year law student Mandaar Mukesh Giri from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University developed a free legal AI app called Law Bot Pro. 'I wanted to develop an app which would benefit everyone by giving them 24/7 access in an easy to use and understandable manner to answer their legal queries," Giri told Bar & Bench.
Law Bot Pro ensures that even those without legal knowledge can access the necessary help. Giri developed the app in collaboration with his brother-in-law, senior software engineer Utsav Beri, and sister Mohini Giri, a specialist in criminal law.
The Law Bot Pro chatbot is modelled on the ChatGPT framework. All the user needs to do is to input a query, and a concise response will be received. Law Bot Pro aims to democratise legal understanding for all.
Niramai
Niramai was founded back in July 2016 and revolutionised breast cancer screening with the use of thermal imaging and AI. Thermal imaging is used to detect abnormalities and assess the health of the breast. Thermal imaging measures the temperature variation from the chest and is analysed using in-house software developed on AI. The in-house software leverages AI to analyse 4 lakh temperatures per person. This is a cost-effective solution that provides women with a safe and comfortable means of getting scanned, especially in rural areas.
3003 BC
Who said AI and olfactory sensors can't be combined to build the perfect perfume? Well, just ask 3003 BC. All the customer needs to do is to fill out a scientifically designed questionnaire. The AI will give them insights into their personality, olfactory preferences, and mood. The AI then analyses multiple possible combinations and churns out three samples. Those three are then sampled by the customer, who then select their preferred combination. Once selected, the consumer will receive a 100ml hand-polished luxury glass bottle filled with their chosen perfume. Thereafter, they can customise the packaging with their name and scent signature.
Why the name 3003 BC, you ask? The earliest references to perfumes date back to the Mesopotamian Age, hence the name.
Upliance
While everyone loves ghar ka khaana, not everyone is well-versed in cooking. That's why Upliance, a Bangalore-based startup founded by IIT-Mumbai alumni Mahek Mody and Mohit Sharma, came to life. They have launched their flagship product, delishUp. It's an intelligent cooking assistant. The goal here is to transform the experience of preparing a meal for consumers with varying levels of cooking experience. It has a touchscreen interface, a range of culinary functions, and AI integration as its backbone. delishUp has guided recipes, nutritional information and support through ChatGPT.
Now, with delishUp, anyone can create a delicious home-cooked meal. The device itself is relatively compact and connects to the internet via Wi-Fi. It's leading the industry in the smart kitchen technology segment.
delishUp offers over 500 pre-loaded recipes across five key categories. It can automate 16 different cooking functions, including chopping, mixing, stirring and more. The machine can churn out a meal for four or fewer people.
Infivention Technologies Pvt Ltd
Thanks to the meteoric rise of Gukesh Dommaraju, chess has experienced a surge in popularity in India like never before. Infivention's own Square Off is an AI-powered chessboard that, ideally, should fly off the shelves. Square Off is the world's first telerobotic, AI-powered chessboard. With Chessboard, you can now play chess against the board. Yes, you can play against the board in real-time. The chess pieces are moved by the board itself. Furthermore, there are 20 difficulty levels to choose from.
One other handy feature is multiplayer. With the SquareOff app, you can challenge anyone anywhere in the world, as the company has tied up with chess.com. Their moves will be reflected physically on the board. The company may have been founded by Atur Mehta and Bhavya Gohil in 2015, but SquareOff is a revolutionary product. The product has been used in over 70 countries!
Bhashini
Bhashini is an AI tool developed by the central government to bridge the dialect divide. Amitabh Nag joined the government in July 2022 to spearhead Bhashini. It's an initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and it's an AI-powered language translation platform that aims to make India's diversity more inclusive, specifically by breaking down language barriers. Bhashini utilises AI and natural language processing (NLP) to build a range of translation, communication, and transaction-related services.
For now, Bhashini has mastered 36 mainstream languages. It's on a pathway toward understanding their regional dialects.
In fact, the Lok Sabha Secretariat and MeitY signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to revolutionise parliamentary operations, which was named 'Sansad Bhashini'. This will provide in-house AI solutions for multilingual support and streamlined processes.
Rephrase.ai
Rephrase.ai is an AI-powered video creation tool. It is a text-to-video generation platform. One can now make professional-looking videos within minutes. Founded by IIT Bombay alumni Ashray Malhotra and Nisheeth Lahoti, and IIT Roorkee alumnus Shivam Mangla, the startup was acquired by San Jose-based software giant Adobe in November 2023. The valuation wasn't disclosed.
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