Pilot to proof: India's agentic AI startups face a funding test

Writing services startup Pibit's $7 million Series A and voice-based sales agent Arrowhead’s $3 million seed round.

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Investors look for intellectual property strength.

(ISTOCKPHOTO)

Stellaris sorts agentic AI into a few types: agents that can do work without being fully accurate, human-in-the-loop services, enterprise-focused solutions, and voice agents. “Agentic AI is a lot more real today than it was a year ago,” Goyal said.

But even as these startups experiment with different agent types, many face stiff competition from established SaaS players that are rapidly adding AI-powered products. Startups must build technology that can’t easily be replaced by large language models while also generating revenue and scaling.

“There’s the SaaS and software companies that are building on top of AI models and launching agentic solutions to their customers. They’ll be at par with the application layer companies,” said Atul Gupta, managing partner at Trident Growth Partners.