India needs its own institutions that don't just participate in AI — they shape it.

We believe India can become one of the defining forces of the AI era. We have the talent, ambition and scale to build some of the world's most important AI companies. A deep engineering base, decades of experience serving the world, and a billion-person local market give us a unique foundation to build from.

Activate exists to help make that happen. We invest from inception through growth, build companies ourselves, and bring together the ecosystem needed to accelerate AI in the country. We believe India will have an outsized role across AI-native services, consumer & voice AI, vertical applications, infrastructure & sovereign AI.

Our ambition goes beyond building great companies. We want to help make India one of the most important AI ecosystems in the world.

Inception

First institutional investor for founders at the intersection of AI and India.

Global Growth

Investing in category-defining global AI companies to create strategic value in India.

Venture Building

Incubating strategic ventures that accelerate AI adoption in India.

Ecosystem

Content, community, and events strengthening India's narrative end-to-end.

People

Community

Our LPs include some of the foremost technology leaders across the India-US corridor:

Aakash Chaudhry, Sparkl
Aloke Bajpai, ixigo
Amrish Rau, Pine Labs
Ashutosh Sharma, Prosus
Avnish Bajaj, Z47
Bhavin Turakhia, Zeta
Dharmesh Thakker, Battery Ventures
Dhaval Shroff, Tesla AI
Girish Mathrubootham, Together Fund
Harish Bahl, Smile Group
Harsh Jain, Dream11
Lalit Keshre, Groww
Miten Sampat, CRED
Mukesh Bansal, Nurix
Mukul Agrawal, Param Capital
Neeraj Arora, General Catalyst
Nick Talwar, Rohati Capital
Nikolay Kostov, Ribbit Capital
Paras Chopra, Lossfunk
Prateek Maheshwari, PhysicsWallah
Raghu Raghuram, Andreessen Horowitz
Rahul Khanna, Trifecta Capital
Ranjan Pai, Manipal Group
Ritesh Agarwal, Oyo Rooms
Ritesh Arora, Browserstack
Ronnie Screwvala, Upgrad
Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon
Shailendra Singh, PeakXV Partners
Sharad Sanghi, Neysa
Srikanth Velamakanni, Fractal
Sriram Rajamani, Microsoft Research
Steve Chen, YouTube
Steve Jang, Kindred Ventures
Varun Mayya, Aeos Labs
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm
Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures

Inception Investing

We partner with founders before incorporation, helping validate ideas and co-building during the earliest product stages. Our engagement goes beyond capital—we bring hands-on support to help teams move from zero to one.

We lead the first institutional funding round, investing $500k–$3M to accelerate development. From technical architecture to go-to-market, we help founders build with velocity, depth, and taste.

We invest across three theses that map to India's structural advantages:

Sovereign AI

Builds the core infrastructure that enables the AI ecosystem.

Examples

Foundational models & model labs
AI infrastructure & compute platforms
AI for Science, Manufacturing, Defence

Portfolio

Why India Wins

Talent + sovereign demand + research arbitrage

Access to top research talent & academia
Sovereign & strategic national priorities
Policy support, grants & compute access

AI Services

Reimagines services businesses with AI at the center.

Examples

AI-first IT services & transformation companies
Vertical AI services platforms
AI-enabled business process outsourcing

Portfolio

Why India Wins

Delivery talent + cost advantage + enterprise relationships

Deep bench of engineering & domain talent
Global delivery advantage
Strong enterprise & GCC relationships

Consumer AI

Creates AI-native experiences for India's mass market.

Examples

AI Tutors, Doctors, Farmers
AI-powered e-commerce & financial services
Content, gaming & productivity AI

Portfolio

Why India Wins

Massive domestic market + mobile-first behavior

Large, growing digital consumer base
Mobile-first adoption
Strong unit economics at scale

Global Growth

We invest in and partner with category-defining global AI companies to create strategic value in India — connecting them to our ecosystem of founders, researchers, and policy stakeholders, and helping them scale in the market.

Our current investments include ElevenLabs (opens in a new tab) and Wispr Flow (opens in a new tab).

Ecosystem

GenAI Community

India's largest WhatsApp AI community, spanning 15k+ technical practitioners across 40+ groups.

Request to join

Activate Signal

Our media platform crafting India's AI narrative — the defining voice of what's happening in AI in India.

Explore Signal

Mixture of Experts

Our monthly dinner at Activate HQ in Bengaluru for builders yet to start up — researchers, operators, and founders on the edge of their next thing.

Request an invite

Partners

Activate has exclusive partnerships with the world's leading AI labs and companies. From day one, every portfolio company receives up to $1M in credits & benefits, along with early access to new models, beta features, and dedicated co-building support.