Perplexity’s Srinivas, Paytm’s Sharma, Others Back Aakrit Vaish’s $75 Mn AI Fund
The ex-Haptik chief is betting on early AI startups with support from top founders and global investors
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[Image source: Chetan Jha/MITSMR India]
Perplexity’s Aravind Srinivas and Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma are among top backers of Activate, a $75 million fund launched by former Haptik co-founder and MeitY India AI mission advisor Aakrit Vaish to support AI startups, Moneycontrol reported, citing people in the know.
General Catalyst, 360 One, Ritesh Arora of Browserstack, Sharad Sanghi of Neysa and Netcore’s Rajesh Jain are also listed as limited partners in the fund, alongside Dream11’s Harsh Jain and Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal.
Activate has already signed its first term sheet and plans to issue average cheques of $2–4 million, the report said.
Vaish, who sold conversational AI platform Haptik to Reliance in a $100 million deal in 2019 and stepped down as its CEO earlier this year, will lead Activate with Pratyush Choudhury, a former principal at Together Fund.
In his previous stints, Choudhury evaluated and funded Composio, an agentic AI platform, and Emergent, an agentic vibe coding platform.
“When we started in 2013, my biggest task was to educate people on why AI and chatbots mattered. From there to building one of India’s largest conversational AI platforms…I feel extremely lucky to have lived this journey,” the ex-Haptik chief said in a LinkedIn post.
The fund is seeking Sebi approval to operate as an alternative investment fund and is in advanced talks with fund-of-funds and global founders for additional backing.
India has about 50 AI-focused venture capital funds. Vaish also co-chairs the Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai and runs early-stage VC firm PeerCheque Investing.
Vaish did not respond to MIT SMR India’s request for comments.
