New Delhi: Google has recently announced its latest partnership with the venture capital firm Accel to fund at least 10 early-stage Indian AI startups, marking the US technology giant’s first such funding partnership. This move comes as several US tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon, and OpenAI make a beeline for the world’s most populous nation, seen as a critical growth market where nearly a billion users access the internet.
Under this latest partnership, Google’s AI Futures Fund and Accel will go on to co-invest up to $2 million in each of the startups, Prayank Swaroop, a partner at Accel, reported by some sources, with the investments focused on the broad areas of entertainment, creativity, work and coding. This announcement comes after Google, in October, stated it would invest $15 billion over five years to set up an AI data centre in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, which is the biggest ever investment in the country.
Its AI Future Fund, launched six months ago, has funded over 30 companies, including the Indian webtoon startup Toonsutra and US-based legal tech firm Harvey. Google has also recently teamed up with India’s largest telecom operator, Reliance Jio, to provide free access to the Gemini AI for 505 million users. They firmly believe that the founder in India is going to be playing a leading role in defining the next era of global technology, as stated by Jonathan Silber, co-founder and director of Google’s AI Future Fund. India’s AI market is projected to reach $17 billion by 2027. Global AI spend is seen at nearly $1.5 trillion in 2025, and will exceed $2 trillion in 2026.
