Indian VCs join the race to back next big AI disruptor

The world may still be trying to gauge the scale of upheaval from generative AI.

- Rwit Ghosh & Shouvik Das

Yet, Indian venture capital investors have joined top global peers in chasing the next disruptive offshoot of generative AI: agentic AI.

Agentic AI is a sophisticated algorithm that can adapt and learn on its own, building on the success of large language models like ChatGPT that need humans to train them. Built for a specific field, it resembles a worker skilled in a certain task—such as customer service, invoicing and more—and operates as a network of skilled professionals to automate tasks.

"Even though the technology is in nascent stages—closer to OpenAI's ChatGPT 3.0—the excitement around agentic systems is about the potential of completely automating repeatable tasks that were taking up a lot of effort," said Prayank Swaroop, partner at Accel, which has started investing in the technology.

Last week, decade-old health-tech firm Innovaccer debuted seven such agents to relieve overworked doctors and medical staff around the world. The San Francisco-based startup is now valued at around $3.5 billion, after raising funds from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin's Singapore-based B Capital Group, and Microsoft's investing arm M12 participate.

Indian venture capital firms are also scouting for potential investment opportunities in some of the world's most promising agentic AI ventures in India and overseas.