Sarvam AI Onboards Nvidia As Strategic Investor In $75 Million Series B Extension, First Indian Firm To Do So

In a milestone development, Bengaluru-based Sarvam AI has become the first Indian company to bring on global chipmaker Nvidia as a strategic investor, with the artificial intelligence startup closing a $75 million extension of its Series B funding round led by the company. Sarvam AI cofounder Pratyush Kumar has confirmed this development.

Kumar confirmed this to ET, adding, "It’s encouraging to see Nvidia betting on Indian companies. Sarvam is the first Indian company to receive an investment from Nvidia."

Sarvam AI and Nvidia: The round and its structure

The extension takes Sarvam AI's total Series B haul past its earlier $234 million round, which was led by HCL Technologies and propelled the company to unicorn status. According to a filing with the Registrar of Companies, Sarvam AI's board approved a special resolution to issue 20,244 Series B preference shares and seven equity shares at an issue price of Rs. 3,44,570 each, raising close to Rs. 698 crore.

Nvidia is the largest investor in the extension, putting in roughly Rs. 238 crore, or about $25 million dollars, for a 1.66 percent stake in the company. Glade Brook Capital contributed close to Rs. 190 crore for a 1.33 percent holding, while Gaja Capital, Indigo Ventures, investors Sanjay Kalra and Jyotika Kapoor, and a group of angel investors and family offices, including Vrijesh Agarwal, KJ Trust and AL Trust, also participated.

With the fresh capital, Sarvam AI's post money valuation is estimated at around Rs. 14,342 crore, or approximately 1.51 billion dollars, taking its total funding raised to nearly 349 million dollars. HCL Technologies, the lead investor in the previous round, will see its stake reduced to 9.95 percent following the dilution, while the company's founders continue to hold a combined majority interest of over 38 percent, retaining strategic control.

Why is Nvidia backing Sarvam?

Sarvam AI's infrastructure runs on Nvidia hardware, including access to the company's Blackwell class graphics processing units, making the equity investment as much a commercial bet as a strategic one for the chipmaker. A direct stake ties Sarvam's growth trajectory to sustained demand for Nvidia's chips within India, as the startup scales training for its foundation models.

The company was founded in August 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, both of whom previously worked on India's digital public infrastructure projects. Sarvam AI builds large language models, AI inference infrastructure and enterprise AI products designed for Indian languages and local use cases. It was selected earlier this year by the central government to develop India's sovereign foundation AI model under the IndiaAI Mission.

What will the funding be used for?

The company has said it plans to use the new capital to scale foundation model training and compute capacity, and to expand its enterprise and government facing product roadmap. Sarvam AI has previously stated it is building a foundation model exceeding one trillion parameters from scratch in India, an undertaking that requires substantial and sustained access to computing infrastructure.

At its first Epoch conference on July 30, 2026, the company detailed token pricing for its Sarvam 105B model and outlined a builder platform aimed at banks, government departments and startups, with a private preview scheduled for August 2026. The company has also released foundation models including Sarvam 30B and Sarvam Vision, all trained within India.

India's growing AI unicorn club

Sarvam AI is now one of only two Indian AI startups to reach unicorn status, alongside Bhavish Aggarwal's Krutrim. Its valuation has climbed sharply since the company's 2023 seed round, reflecting rising global investor interest in India's artificial intelligence ecosystem and in startups building foundational AI infrastructure rather than applications layered on existing models.

Industry watchers have noted that strategic investors such as Nvidia bring more than capital to Sarvam AI, offering access to graphics processing unit supply, cloud infrastructure and enterprise deployment channels that are seen as central to the startup's long term scaling plans as it competes to build sovereign AI capabilities for India.