Google has partnered with Accel to search out and fund India’s earliest-stage AI startups in a first-of-its-kind collaboration for the Google AI Futures Fund, launched earlier this 12 months.
On Tuesday, Accel and Google announced a partnership to collectively make investments as much as $2 million in every startup by means of Accel’s Atoms program, with each companies contributing as much as $1 million. The 2026 cohort will deal with founders in India and the Indian diaspora constructing AI merchandise from day one.
“The thought course of is constructing AI merchandise for billions of Indians, in addition to supporting AI merchandise in-built India for world markets,” Prayank Swaroop, a accomplice at Accel, instructed TechCrunch.
India is an interesting market with the world’s second-largest web and smartphone base after China and its deep engineering expertise. Nonetheless, it’s additionally a rustic that lacks frontier mannequin improvement and hasn’t produced many firms pushing the technical frontier of AI, the place improvement stays concentrated within the U.S. and China.
Exercise is beginning to shift, nonetheless, as main companies together with OpenAI and Anthropic have just lately introduced workplaces within the nation, and world buyers step up early-stage commitments. The wager is that a big, mobile-first inhabitants, increasing cloud infrastructure, and comparatively low software program prices might flip India right into a significant AI market — if the ecosystem can translate expertise and demand into unique analysis and merchandise.
Swaroop mentioned investments shall be geared towards nearly any space: creativity, leisure, coding, and work. “The way forward for work right here is extra encompassing, which is actually SaaS, and all different purposes,” he instructed TechCrunch. “It might even be foundational fashions.”
Swaroop mentioned the companies will even attempt to establish areas the place giant language fashions are prone to advance over the subsequent 12-24 months and search for Indian startups constructing in these instructions.
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Alongside capital, founders will obtain as much as $350,000 in compute credit throughout Google Cloud, Gemini, and DeepMind, in addition to early entry to Gemini and DeepMind fashions, APIs, and experimental options. This system will embrace assist from Google Labs and DeepMind analysis groups, co-development alternatives, month-to-month mentorship with Accel companions and Google technical leads, and immersion periods in London and the Bay Space, together with Google I/O. Founders will even get advertising assist by means of Accel and Google’s world channels, in addition to entry to the Atoms founder community and Google’s AI builder ecosystem, the businesses mentioned.
“India has an unbelievable historical past of innovation, and we firmly consider that its founders are going to be taking part in a number one position within the subsequent era of AI-led world expertise,” Jonathan Silber, co-founder and director of the Google AI Futures Fund, instructed TechCrunch. “That is the Futures Fund’s first such collaboration wherever on the earth, and we selected India for a purpose. Google has been a dedicated accomplice within the nation’s journey to digital transformation, with multibillion-dollar investments through the years.”
The partnership follows Google’s latest $15 billion plan to construct a 1-gigawatt knowledge middle and AI hub in India. The corporate additionally introduced a $10 billion digitization fund in 2020, which has backed companies together with Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Walmart-owned Flipkart. Final month, Google partnered with Reliance to supply hundreds of thousands of Jio customers free entry to AI Professional.
Google launched the AI Futures Fund in Could as a devoted car to put money into and collaborate with AI startups globally. It has backed firms together with Replit and Harvey, and has additionally invested immediately in Indian startups resembling Toonsutra and STAN.
Silber instructed TechCrunch that Google would seem on the cap tables of startups funded by means of the partnership and can be “a cloth presence,” however declined to share how its fairness stakes would evaluate with Accel’s.
“That is our try and work with the market chief within the house who is aware of the nation extremely nicely, that may get us speaking to earlier-stage founders at an early informative stage, that may transfer the needle,” Silber mentioned.
Whereas utilizing Google merchandise is, maybe, a given for candidates to this program, each Silber and Swaroop instructed TechCrunch there can be no necessities for startups to solely use Gemini or every other Google product.
“Typically, Google’s expertise is the most effective. Different occasions, you’ll see Anthropic or OpenAI. So, we’re not placing agency necessities that say you may solely use Google’s fashions,” mentioned Silber. “What we’re hoping to do, although, is use a few completely different distinctive integrations that we are able to do with these firms that leverage Google AI expertise.”
Launched in 2021, Accel’s pre-seed and seed platform, Atoms, has backed greater than 40 firms which have collectively raised over $300 million in follow-on funding. The agency expanded the program this year to incorporate Indian-origin founders based mostly abroad.
The newest collaboration comes days after Accel’s partnership with Prosus to co-invest in Atoms X, backing early-stage Indian founders constructing large-scale options with the potential to serve the plenty within the nation.
Silber instructed TechCrunch that Google will not be structuring the partnership as a pathway to future acquisitions, and even future cloud prospects.
“We’re not a gross sales crew, so we’re not particularly trying to enroll new cloud prospects. That’s not our purpose,” he mentioned. “By way of KPIs, our goal is just to see the subsequent wave of innovation within the AI house popping out of India.”
