HCLTech leads ₹1,427 crore investment in Sarvam AI as startup becomes a unicorn

Bengaluru-based Sarvam has secured $234 million, aiming to become India's AI leader. The company is building comprehensive AI solutions, from foundation models to enterprise applications, targeting crucial sectors like banking and government. While facing intense global competition and infrastructure challenges, Sarvam's focus on local context offers a unique advantage in the race for AI sovereignty.

Sarvam AI has become India's latest AI unicorn after raising $234M from investors including HCL Tech, Bessemer, and Khosla Ventures. Co-founder, Pratyush Kumar, joined Paul Allen on Insight with Haslinda Amin t (Source: Bloomberg)

Shares of IT major HCL Technologies witnessed strong buying interest on Tuesday after the company announced an investment of ₹1,427.25 crore (around $150 million) in Axonwise Private Limited, known as Sarvam AI, one of India’s leading artificial intelligence companies.Following the announcement, HCLTech shares surged 3.42% to ₹1,157.5 on the BSE in early trade. Although the stock later gave up some gains, it remained in positive territory. The broader market, represented by the BSE Sensex, was also positive, rising 222 points or 0.29% to 76,486.HCLTech is investing $150 million in Sarvam AI to acquire a 10.46% equity stake. The funding round values Sarvam at a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion. Alongside HCLTech, global private equity and venture capital firms such as Peak XV, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Khosla Ventures also participated in the funding round.Sarvam AI Turns Unicorn After Raising $234 Million In Series B Funding Round, Valuation Hits $1.5 Billion According to the company, the capital infusion will be used to advance Sarvam AI’s research and development efforts. The focus will be on building next-generation frontier AI models for applications in agentic AI systems, coding solutions, and cybersecurity use cases. The funds will also help expand computing infrastructure across multiple industry sectors.HCLTech said its global enterprise experience and client network will help Sarvam develop a full-stack sovereign AI ecosystem for India and international markets. The collaboration is expected to strengthen India’s position in advanced artificial intelligence development.Commenting on the investment, HCLTech CEO and MD C Vijayakumar said the partnership marks a major step toward building a trusted and globally competitive AI ecosystem in India. He added that combining Sarvam’s AI research capabilities with HCLTech’s global reach will enable the creation of secure, scalable, and responsible AI solutions for enterprises and governments.

Bengaluru: Indian artificial intelligence startup Sarvam on Monday announced that it has entered the unicorn club after raising $234 million in the first close of its $300 million Series B funding round, taking its post-money valuation to $1.5 billion.We're thrilled to announce that we have raised $234M in the first close of our $300M Series B at a $1.5B valuation.@HCLTech and @BessemerVP have joined us in this round, alongside continued support from @khoslaventures and @peakxvpartners For countries and companies,… pic.twitter.com/k3h1isqkRq— Sarvam (@SarvamAI) June 15, 2026 Series B funding detailsThe funding round was led by HCLTech as a strategic investor, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and continued backing from existing investors Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners.Growth and positioning as sovereign AI platformThe latest fundraise marks a major milestone for the Bengaluru-based company, which is positioning itself as India's full-stack sovereign AI platform.'Space Technology Is One Of India's Strengths': Global Diplomats Laud India's Achievements At ISC 2026 Planned use of capitalSarvam said the capital will be used to advance research on its next-generation frontier AI models focused on agentic AI, coding and cybersecurity applications, while also expanding access to large-scale computing infrastructure and accelerating deployments across key sectors.HCLTech strategic investmentAs part of the round, HCLTech will invest $150 million, making it the lead strategic investor. HCLTech will invest $150M as the lead strategic investor in @SarvamAI, India's full-stack sovereign #AI company. By combining its deep enterprise transformation expertise, trusted global client relationships, data and other software IP, and engineering depth, HCLTech will… pic.twitter.com/BXikdwixhJ— HCLTech (@hcltech) June 15, 2026 The IT services major said the partnership would combine Sarvam's AI research capabilities with HCLTech's enterprise expertise, engineering talent and global customer relationships to build a comprehensive sovereign AI ecosystem for India and international markets."Our investment in Sarvam marks a significant step toward building India's trusted and globally competitive AI ecosystem," said C Vijayakumar, CEO and Managing Director of HCLTech.He added that the collaboration would help create a differentiated full-stack AI platform for enterprises and governments while enabling secure, scalable and responsible AI adoption.Product and model portfolio expansionSarvam Co-founder Pratyush Kumar said the company remains focused on research-led innovation aimed at building AI systems that work at India's scale.Big day for all of us at Sarvam.I want to start by thanking my team for shouldering this mission with immense belief, urgency, and care.Reflecting on the last few years of the founding journey, my conviction has only deepened:- AI will be far more consequential than most of… https://t.co/BZWnAXxIbh— Pratyush Kumar (@pratykumar) June 15, 2026 He noted that the company is developing models capable of understanding Indian languages and voices, processing local documents and delivering affordable intelligence for enterprises and governments.The company has rapidly expanded its AI portfolio in recent months. It has launched multiple foundational models trained entirely in India, including Sarvam 105B, which the company claims matches or outperforms larger reasoning models on several benchmarks, and Sarvam 30B, which is designed to run efficiently on consumer hardware.Its document intelligence model, Sarvam Vision, is being used to digitise more than 35 million pages of records, ranging from insurance forms to land documents.(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)

Shares of IT major HCL Tech gained 3% to their day's high of Rs 1,150 on the BSE on Tuesday after the IT services company emerged as the lead investor in a fresh funding round for Sarvam AI, India's largest pure-play artificial intelligence startup.HCL Tech has invested Rs 1,427 crore, or approximately $150 million, in Sarvam AI, securing a 10.46% stake in the company. The investment was part of a Series B funding round of around $300 million, which values the startup at nearly $1.5 billion.Besides HCL Tech, investors including Nvidia, Prosperity7, Activate and Glade Brook collectively contributed around $100 million in the funding round, while Bessemer invested $50 million. Sarvam AI is also backed by early investors such as PeakXV and Khosla Ventures.As part of the partnership, HCL Tech will support Sarvam AI's research and development efforts focused on next-generation frontier AI agentic models, coding models and cybersecurity applications. The funding will also help the startup gain access to large-scale computing infrastructure and expand deployments across key industry sectors.Also read: Oil Price Today (June 16): Crude oil rebounds after 5% plunge as traders await US-Iran peace deal details. Where are prices headed?According to HCL Tech, the investment will help it develop industry-specific, client-focused language models and AI solutions for its global customer base. The company expects these offerings to deliver strong price-to-performance results and strengthen its enterprise AI capabilities across industries.The partnership will also allow HCL Tech to leverage and further develop Sarvam AI's multilingual capabilities in India and international markets, supporting both sovereign AI initiatives and enterprise deployments. In addition, the company aims to accelerate the development and adoption of sovereign AI solutions for governments, regulated sectors and enterprises seeking localised, secure and compliant AI deployments.HCL Tech Q4 snapshotIT major HCL Technologies reported a 4.2% growth in its consolidated net profit for the March-ended quarter at Rs 4,488 crore versus Rs 4,307 crore in the year-ago period. The profit after tax (PAT) is attributable to the owners of the company.The revenue from operations in Q4FY26 stood at Rs 33,981 crore, 12% higher than Rs 30,246 crore posted in the corresponding quarter of the last financial year.Separately, HCL Tech has guided for revenue growth of 1% to 4% for the financial year 2027 compared with the financial year 2026. The outlook factors in a 50-basis-point impact from client-specific issues and a 2% to 3% impact from AI-led deflation.HCL Tech sharesShares of the company are down 32% YTD and about 35% in the last 1 year. Sensex, Nifty today: Catch all the LIVE stock market action here(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

The funding comes amid growing investor interest in India’s AI ecosystem. Earlier this year, AI cloud platform Neysa raised $1.2 billion in a Blackstone-led funding round to expand large-scale AI infrastructure. Sarvam co-founder Pratyush Kumar said the fresh capital will expand compute infrastructure, help hire AI talent and build new products, including an AI-assisted coding platform aimed at competing with global software engineering assistants such as Claude and Codex.