Aakrit Vaish

Activating AI in India

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

I moved back to India in 2013 with a simple mission: to build AI for the country.

Since then, I've been incredibly fortunate to build Haptik, invest in 100+ startups, co-create TEAM for Mumbai and contribute to our sovereign AI strategy through the IndiaAI Mission. Today, all of it comes together in my next act.

Introducing Activate: India’s AI Venture Fund.

We believe AI in India will be built by technical crack teams. Activate is created for such founders, engaging with them well before company formation and investing $500k-$3M at inception.

With @177pc, the one & only person in the world I'd want to do this with.

It starts here. It starts now. It's time to Activate.

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

This is so phenomenal.

Sanket has been at it for close to a decade. With every major AI shift, invideo has been at the frontier of video.

Wholly and solely built in Mumbai, for the world.

[Invideo @invideoOfficial]

Last week Physion Labs published an independent benchmark of AI video agents. Invideo wasn't in it. We requested them to include us. Results are out. invideo Agent One is #1. We are number #1 on 12 of the 16 individual metrics. Never falling below #2

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

@sarvagya_kul @joshaeeee Would love to!

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

YC just published it's latest call for startups.

These two caught my eye for India.

[Mati Staniszewski @mati]

We recently crossed $600M in total ARR with Q2 being our second quarter with over $100M ARR added!

Our customers are deploying voice AI and conversational agents at every stage of the customer journey, from sales and marketing to onboarding and support - ElevenAgents are now handling 10 million conversations every week!

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

We’re meeting 10–15 founding teams every week building in these areas, and having incredible fun while doing it.

It’s still Day 1 for AI in India. Look forward to continue building alongside founders, academia, big-tech, enterprise, policymakers, co-investors, and everyone helping shape the country's AI future.

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

Earlier this week, we published Activate's quarterly update for our LPs.

Sharing a few slides that capture our core mission and the investment strategy behind it.

@177pc @soaibgrewal

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

@177pc @soaibgrewal What do we believe in?

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

India shouldn't just use AI.

We should build the frontier technologies that define the next generation of science.

That's exactly what @TanayLohia1 and the Mandrake team are setting out to do.

Thrilled to be on this journey together.

[Pratyush Choudhury (PC) @177pc]

https://t.co/Egs3A2xHTg

[Pratyush Choudhury (PC) @177pc]

When we wrote our first cheque to @TanayLohia1, there was no company & not even a deck

What stood out wasn’t the answers he had then. It was how quickly he came back w/ a better one

@BioMandrake is built on the same idea: every experiment should make the next design better

@aakrit, @soaibgrewal, @ActivateSignal

[Activate @ActivateSignal]

https://t.co/sDVXHUEr8v

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

@IndusThink Very cool, would love to chat

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

One of our core beliefs at Activate is that India's AI opportunity won't come from simply applying foundation models, it will come from building at the frontier.

Tomorrow we're hosting a small, invite-only gathering in Bengaluru on AI for Science, bringing together researchers, founders, and investors.

Many of the next generation of AI companies will emerge from breakthroughs in biology, chemistry, materials science, and physics. We want India to help build that future from day one.

If you're working at this frontier, we'd love to have you join us.

https://t.co/clduu38Ex5

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

@WHYkalwani Yes, next month :)

[Roman Saini @RomanSaini]

Inspired by Founders Fund, we shot a game of Mafia in Bangalore. Here’s Episode 1 ☺️

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

Good guys always win :)

[miten sampat @miten]

In 2020 when I joined @kunalb11 at CRED, I was drawn to the incredible team and a contrarian idea – “not everyone gets it”

we had ~1M members & $750M TPV

fast forward to 2026, CRED’s impact among India’s most creditworthy is clear, we now serve 17M members & process $100B in TPV

we’ve built with taste, always keeping our members' trust & financial progress as our north star

this momentum is the outcome of ambition, craft, ownership and relentless standards of our team at CRED.

Meta’s $900M minority investment is a booster in our plans to build an enduring institution with an eventual public listing. Meta will be a passive financial investor with no-access to customer data.

Kunal: thanks for being thankless and always 5x-ing each target.

proud to build the next phase of CRED with the best team in Indian fintech.

back to work 🚀

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

Let's go 🚀

[shyamal @shyamalanadkat]

after close to four years at @openai, i moved from the bay area to india earlier this year. i still believe deeply in ensuring true superintelligence accelerates science and remains accessible and beneficial to all. having grown up here, i've also always felt deeply connected to the ecosystem here.

over the past several weeks, i've been speaking with researchers, engineers, and thinkers across india and apac. it's become clear that there are many who want to build the future from here. moving back felt like the counterintuitive choice. i no longer think that's true.

what's been missing is the belief that you can build institutions of global consequence from anywhere. and more importantly, the ambition and the will to pursue ideas that seem impossibly large at first. this may be a once in a generation opportunity.

more to come soon. DMs open if this resonates.

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

@mati @ElevenLabs Where is it? :)

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

@DrDatta_AIIMS @MohapatraHemant Thanks, this means a lot. We are literally just getting started.

[Aakrit Vaish @aakrit]

@nixxin @_saah1l that was exactly the plan @soaibgrewal