""The thought process is building AI products for billions of Indians, as well as supporting AI products built in India for global markets," Prayank Swaroop, a partner at Accel, told TechCrunch. India is an appealing market with the world's second-largest internet and smartphone base after China and its deep engineering talent. Still, it's also country that lacks frontier model development and hasn't produced many companies pushing the technical frontier of AI, where development remains concentrated in the U.S. and China."
"Swaroop said investments will be geared toward just about any area: creativity, entertainment, coding, and work. "The future of work here is more encompassing, which is essentially SaaS, and all other applications," he told TechCrunch. "It could even be foundational models." Swaroop said the firms will also try to identify areas where large language models are likely to advance over the next 12-24 months and look for Indian startups building in those directions."
Google partnered with Accel to fund India's earliest-stage AI startups through the Google AI Futures Fund and Accel's Atoms program. Accel and Google will jointly invest up to $2 million per startup, with each firm contributing up to $1 million. The 2026 cohort targets founders in India and the Indian diaspora building AI products from day one. Investments will address creativity, entertainment, coding, work and potentially foundational models. Founders will also receive up to $350,000 in compute. The initiative aims to translate India's large mobile-first population, expanding cloud infrastructure and engineering talent into original AI research and products.
Read at TechCrunch
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