Aakrit Vaish launches India-focused AI fund Activate

Aakrit Vaish launches India-focused AI fund Activate

03 Dec 2025, 06:57 PM

The Limited Partners (LPs), or investors, in the fund include prominent technology leaders such as Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO, Perplexity.

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Aakrit Vaish, co-founder of conversational AI startup Haptik, which was acquired by Reliance, has announced the launch of India-focused AI venture fund -- Activate.

In a LinkedIn post, Vaish noted that the fund was "co-founded by Pratyush Choudhury, the one & only person in the world I'd want to do this with."

Choudhury was previously part of Freshworks' founder Girish Mathrubootham floated venture capital firm -- Together Fund, which has backed AI startups including Composio and Emergent. He was also earlier part of Tiger Global-backed doctor consultation platform Lybrate, which was acquired by Pristyn Care in 2022.

While Vaish did not disclose the fund size, he said that it will engage with startups well before company formation and invest $500,000-$3 million at inception. Vaish was earlier also an advisor at MeitY’s India AI mission.

The Limited Partners (LPs), or investors, in the fund include prominent technology leaders such as Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO, Perplexity; Vinod Khosla founder of Khosla Ventures; Ashish Vaswani, co-founder and CEO Essential AI; Martin Casado, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz; and Shyamal Anadkat of OpenAI.

Top executives at Indian ventures capital and venture debt firms have also joined in as LPs including Avnish Bajaj, founder and investor, Z47; Shailendra Singh, managing director, Peak XV Partners; and Rahul Khanna of Trifecta Capital.

Among the LPs are also founders and executives from major Indian startups including Ronnie Screwvala of Upgrad; Miten Sampat of CRED; and Harsh Jain of Dream11.

The launch of the fund comes as AI adoption in India is growing at a fast clip and global AI startups are looking to tap into India's massive internet users. OpenAI and Anthropic have planned to open offices in India as their user base in the country expands.

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