Ola Founder Invests $230M in Krutrim and Unveils Five Revolutionary AI Models

Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal announced a significant investment of ₹20 billion (approximately $230 million) into his artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Krutrim. During the announcement on Tuesday, Aggarwal also revealed his ambitious plan to infuse ₹100 billion ($1.16 billion) into the venture by next year, cementing his commitment to building cutting-edge AI solutions for India.

As the co-founder and CEO of Ola Consumer and the founder of Ola Electric, Aggarwal is no stranger to innovation. This latest initiative introduces five advanced AI models, an Indian-centric AI platform named Bharat Bench, and the Krutrim AI Lab, a dedicated research hub that aims to contribute its findings to the open-source community.

A Groundbreaking AI Unicorn

Krutrim made headlines in January last year when it became India’s first AI unicorn, securing $50 million in funding from investors led by Matrix Partners India. The startup continues to break new ground with its focus on creating AI models tailored to India’s unique linguistic and cultural diversity.

The Five Advanced AI Models

Aggarwal unveiled five distinct AI models, each addressing specific challenges and opportunities in AI development:

1. Krutrim 2: An advanced large language model and successor to Krutrim 1, India’s first LLM launched in January last year. While Krutrim 1 was a basic 7B model, Krutrim 2 is a far more advanced and capable version, designed for enhanced understanding and processing of complex language queries.
2. Chitrarth 1: A vision-language model designed for tasks that require the integration of visual and textual data, such as image captioning and visual storytelling.
3. Dhwani 1: A speech-language model developed to process and analyze audio inputs, enabling seamless speech-to-text conversions and advanced voice recognition capabilities.
4. Vakyarth 1: An AI model specifically built for representing and processing Indian languages. It is a groundbreaking solution for tackling the nuances of regional dialects and complex linguistic structures in Indic languages.
5. Krutrim Translate 1: A text-to-text translation model that supports nine Indic languages—English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, and Malayalam. This model allows for seamless translation across these languages, making it a vital tool for breaking language barriers in India.

Bharat Bench: Shaping AI for India

Aggarwal also introduced Bharat Bench, an AI platform designed to evaluate AI models for their readiness in the Indian market. Many existing AI models struggle with Indian languages, but Bharat Bench provides a “report card” to help developers identify areas for improvement. This initiative underscores Krutrim’s mission to create AI solutions that are uniquely tailored to India’s needs.

Competing Globally, Building Locally

Aggarwal emphasized the importance of creating AI solutions that put India on the global innovation map. “Recent advancements, such as those demonstrated by DeepSeek, have shown that AI breakthroughs are not limited to Silicon Valley. We acknowledge their remarkable achievements. Meanwhile, we have been steadfastly building AI for India. It’s time for India to compete with the world,” stated a blog post on the Krutrim AI Lab website.

Driving AI Innovation for India

With this substantial investment and the launch of these advanced models, Bhavish Aggarwal aims to position Krutrim as a leader in AI innovation, particularly for the Indian market. The startup’s commitment to open-source contributions and the development of AI tools tailored to Indian languages and needs highlights its potential to revolutionize the industry.

Krutrim’s vision goes beyond just technology—it seeks to empower India to compete on a global scale while addressing local challenges, paving the way for a new era of AI-driven transformation.