India May Take Minority Stake In Sarvam AI
The government may get a 1% to 2% holding in the Bengaluru startup through support extended under the IndiaAI Mission.
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The Indian government may become a minority shareholder in Bengaluru-based AI startup Sarvam AI by converting compulsorily convertible debentures received under the IndiaAI Mission into equity, The Economic Times reported.
The Centre could acquire a 1% to 2% stake in the startup as part of Sarvam’s $300 million Series B round, or growth-stage funding round, which values the company at $1.5 billion, the report said.
Sarvam last week announced the first close of the round, raising $234 million. HCL Technologies Ltd led the financing with a $150 million investment, while Bessemer Venture Partners also joined the round.
Existing backers Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners participated as well.
The company was selected in April 2025 under the IndiaAI Mission, the government’s AI program, to build an indigenous sovereign large language model. As part of that support, Sarvam received subsidized access to compute capacity, or AI processing power, including 4,096 Nvidia H100 GPUs for six months.
The IndiaAI Mission has a five-year outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore to support AI compute, foundation models, startups and other parts of India’s AI ecosystem.
