BENGALURU: Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) landscape in India has been witnessing broad-based growth, as in Q2FY25 alone, the country’s GenAI start-up funding saw 6x rise q-o-q at about $51 million compared to $8 million in the previous quarter.
The funding revival in Q2FY25 was led by applications and services. According to Nasscom Generative AI Tracker Q2FY2025, over 90% of GenAI funding in the second quarter went to three start-ups- Nurix AI ($27.5 mn), Dashtoon ($12.8 mn) and Mihup ($6 mn).
Though this is huge growth, it is less compared to Q3 and Q4FY2024, as in these quarters GenAI start-up investments stood at $55 million and $74 million, respectively. These quarters saw Sarvam.ai and Krutrim funding of over $40 million each.
The second quarter of this fiscal also saw a record 20 funding rounds, and funding rounds grew by 3X in the quarter, with early-stage investments accounting for 77% of all rounds, including angel and seed funding.
Sangeeta Gupta, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Nasscom, said, “The generative AI landscape is evolving rapidly, reshaping technology service providers and unlocking new capabilities. Providers are reevaluating strategies and increasing investments in technology and talent.” She added that Q2FY2025 marked a key shift in the country’s GenAI space, with funding focused on impactful applications that enhance productivity.
The IT services industry in the second quarter mentioned that their revenue pipeline in GenAI has been strong. The report pointed out that Accenture reported $3 billion in bookings, and realised around $1 billion, and TCS posted $1.5 billion bookings. This shows that significant momentum is building for productionising use cases into revenue-generating projects.
AI skilled employees rises significantly
The report mentioned that about 84% of employees in Infosys are AI aware as of Q2FY25 and in Wipro, 44,000 employees have been trained on advanced AI capabilities, including partner certifications. Global GenAI start-up funding stood at $4 billion in the second quarter and four new unicorns emerged in this quarter.