Funding · AI & Deep Tech

HCLTech leads $234M Series B in Sarvam AI

By Startup Enthusiast · 15 June 2026

Date: 15 June 2026
Company: Sarvam AI
What it does: Sovereign AI company building frontier models
Kind: Funding
Amount: ₹1,427.25 crore (~$150M) for 10.46% stake; Series B first close $234M out of planned $300M
Stage: Series B
Based in: Bengaluru
Founded: 2023-07-14
Sector: AI & Deep Tech

What they do

Sarvam AI is an India-based sovereign AI company building frontier models for text, speech, vision and document

HCLTech acquired a 10.46% stake for ₹1,427.25 crore (~$150M) as lead strategic investor in a $234M first close of a planned $300M Series B

The round values Sarvam AI at $1.5B post-money, making it India's 130th unicorn

HCLTech acquired a 10.46% stake in Sarvam AI for ₹1,427.25 crore (~$150M) by purchasing 41,421 equity shares.
This is part of Sarvam AI's Series B round, which has a first close of $234M out of a planned $300M.
The post-money valuation is $1.5B, making Sarvam AI India's 130th unicorn.
HCLTech is the lead strategic investor in this round.
Other participants include Bessemer Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, and Peak XV Partners.
The transaction is not a related party transaction and requires no government or regulatory approvals.
Completion is expected within two weeks of signing on June 15, 2026.

Sarvam AI is among 12+ AI startups selected under the IndiaAI Mission to build indigenous foundation models.
The company received ₹98.68 Cr under the IndiaAI Mission for 4,096 Nvidia H100 GPUs for six months (total compute bill ₹246.71 Cr).
The Centre may acquire 1-2% stake in Sarvam post the $300M round via conversion of CCDs from IndiaAI Mission compute infrastructure.

Sarvam AI is an India-based sovereign AI company building frontier AI models (text, speech, vision, document) trained from scratch in India.
It focuses on banking, insurance, government technology, and defence sectors.
Products include training/inference infrastructure, SaaS platforms, services-as-software, smart devices, and wearable AI.
Its conversational platform handles 2M+ interactions per day, with usage doubling in the last two months.
Its inference platform processes 10M API calls per day, with usage tripling in the last three months.
Partners include SBI Life, LIC, IDFC, Tata Capital, and CRED.
Headquartered in Bengaluru, it operates across India.

Funds will be used for R&D on next-gen frontier models (agentic AI, coding, cybersecurity) and compute infrastructure expansion.
HCLTech aims to develop industry-specific language models, expand multilingual AI beyond India, and accelerate sovereign AI for governments and regulated industries.

HCLTech (lead strategic investor) — Indian IT services company acquiring a 10.46% stake.
Bessemer Venture Partners (participated) — Global venture capital firm.
Khosla Ventures (participated) — US-based venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla.
Peak XV Partners (participated) — Indian venture capital firm (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA).

Product: Foundation models and agentic AI systems with voice capabilities and enterprise applications
Customers: Enterprise customers across finance, aviation, telecom and government sectors
How it makes money: SaaS and licensing model for AI models and enterprise AI applications
What sets it apart: India-built sovereign AI stack with focus on cost-effective deployment and localization