Krutim AI Becomes India’s First Unicorn AI

Last Updated on January 27, 2024 by SPN Editor

Krutrim AI, the innovative artificial intelligence startup founded by Bhavish Aggarwal, recently secured $50 million in equity funding in a round led by prominent investors, including Matrix Partners India. This significant investment has propelled Krutrim to a valuation of $1 billion, making it India’s first AI unicorn and the third-fastest startup to achieve unicorn status.

The funding round marks a milestone for Krutrim AI, which was incorporated in April of the previous year. Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal expressed enthusiasm about the successful closure of the funding round, highlighting its validation of Krutrim’s innovative AI solutions and the confidence investors have in the company’s ability to drive meaningful change globally.

Krutrim AI plans to utilize the newly acquired funds to fuel innovation and expand its global presence. The startup aims to revolutionize the AI landscape by leveraging its expertise in artificial intelligence. Bhavish Aggarwal, known for his previous success with Ola, has positioned Krutrim as a key player in the AI domain.

The company has introduced AI models, including Krutrim base and Krutrim Pro, which boast multi-modal capabilities, larger knowledge capacities, and various technical advancements for inference. These models have been trained from scratch on a vast dataset of 2 trillion tokens and can comprehend over 20 Indian languages, generating text in 10 Indian languages.

Krutrim AI’s success is not only reflected in its unicorn status but also in its commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI technology. The company claims superior performance on global language model benchmarks such as MMLU, HellaSwag, BBH, PIQA, and ARC.

The term “Krutrim” is derived from the Sanskrit language, meaning “artificial.” The startup has positioned itself as a family of Large Language Models (LLMs), contributing to the burgeoning field of Generative AI. The startup previously raised $24 million in debt from Matrix Partners in October 2023.

As highlighted in Inc42’s ‘India’s Generative AI Startup Landscape, 2023’ report, the country’s Generative AI market is poised for exponential growth, projected to exceed $17 billion by 2030 from $1.1 billion in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48%.

How does Krutim AI distinguish itself from other AI models?

Linguistic Diversity: Unlike most pre-trained models that primarily use English tokens, Krutim is proficient in 20 Indian languages and can produce content in ten of these, including Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odiya, and Telugu. The base model of Krutim AI incorporates approximately 20 times more Indic tokens than any other existing model.
Extensive Training: Krutim AI has been trained on over 2 trillion ‘tokens’, which are sub-words used in conversations. This vast amount of data is particularly significant for representing Indian languages.
Superior Performance: Krutim reportedly outshines other open-source large language models (LLMs) trained with similar data volumes on a variety of industry-standard benchmarks. It is also claimed to surpass GPT-4 in Indic language support.
Cultural Sensitivity: Equipped with voice capabilities, Krutim AI can deliver unique responses that reflect a deep understanding of the Indian ethos.
Model Variations: Krutim offers two classifications: the base Krutim AI model, and Krutrim Pro, a more potent version with enhanced capabilities for problem-solving and task execution.

Applications of Krutim AI, particularly in the Indian context

Multilingual Expertise: Krutim’s ability to comprehend 22 Indian languages and generate content in about ten of them, including Marathi, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Odia, Gujarati, and Malayalam, makes it ideal for applications that necessitate interaction with technology in native Indian languages.
Local Wisdom, Global Perspective: Krutim’s grasp of Indian culture, geography, and history enables it to generate content that resonates with Indian audiences. This could be leveraged for creating engaging social media posts, insightful legal documents, and more.
Affordability: Krutim AI aims to be more cost-effective than its global competitors. This presents opportunities for smaller businesses and startups to harness the power of AI without incurring substantial costs.
Standard Natural Language Tasks: Krutim AI can be employed for most standard natural language tasks, including classification, summarization, translation, speech applications, semantic search, dialogue agents, and creative content generation.
Integration into Products and Services: Developers and companies can use the Krutim AI model via APIs to enhance their products and services. This could involve adding automation, customer support, voice and chat, and sales conversations with customers.
Education and Healthcare: The deployment of Krutim AI across various sectors, including education and healthcare, is being explored. For instance, it could be used to create personalized learning materials for rural students.
Customer Service: Krutim could be utilized to create culturally sensitive chatbots for customer service.
In conclusion, Krutim AI holds the potential to transform how Indians interact with technology, breaking down the linguistic and cultural barriers that often separate them from cutting-edge advancements.

Krutrim AI’s journey to becoming India’s first AI unicorn underscores the dynamism and potential of the country’s AI landscape. With this latest funding injection, Krutrim AI is well-positioned to continue driving innovation and making significant contributions to the global AI community.