Sarvam’s Unicorn Leap, Razorpay Files DRHP & More

India Welcomes Its 130th Unicorn

Sarvam AI has become India’s newest unicorn after raising $234 Mn in its ongoing Series B round led by tech giant HCLTech. Valuing the AI juggernaut at $1.5 Bn, the fundraise signals a bigger shift in how Indian AI is being built, deployed and commercialised. 

Marquee Names Line Up: The mega round gives the AI giant serious firepower for its next phase. The funds will bankroll research, compute expansion and broader deployment. HCLTech infused $150 Mn to acquire a 10.46% stake, while Bessemer Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners also joined the round. It plans to eventually close the round at $300 Mn.

The Indic Flywheel: Sarvam’s journey has been unusually fast. What began as an experiment with OpenHathi-v1 in 2023 eventually evolved into frontier LLMs such as Sarvam-30B and Sarvam-105B earlier this year. This evolution reflects a broader strategy – make AI models usable in local Indian languages and enterprise settings. 

Growing Steadily: Today, Sarvam handles more than 2 Mn conversations a day and over 10 Mn API calls daily, with voice AI becoming a major revenue engine. The startup’s FY26 revenue jumped to ₹45.1 Cr from just ₹1.5 Cr a year earlier, showing how quickly commercial traction has accelerated.

Sarvam’s New Bets: The startup is now pivoting toward mass-market scalability, recently opening its conversational AI platform to small businesses via self-serve onboarding and free usage tiers. It is also expanding into adjacent infrastructure bets such as smart glasses and an orbital data centre project with Pixxel, slated for late-2026 launch. 

Despite the capital and the technical flex, early developer feedback for Sarvam’s indigenous AI models suggested pain points like lack of GGUF formats, missing vLLM integrations, and limited tooling support. With much to fix and scale, here is all about Sarvam becoming India’s second AI unicorn… 

From The Editor’s Desk

Razorpay Gears Up For IPO

• The fintech major has filed its DRHP with SEBI via the confidential pre-filing route for its IPO. The unicorn is said to be looking to raise up to $600 Mn through the issue at a valuation of $5-$6 Bn, lower than its last private valuation of $7.5 Bn.
• Founded in 2014, Razorpay offers a full-stack payments and financial services platform, offering solutions for payment acceptance, disbursals, lending and business banking. It has raised more than $800 Mn to date.
• The development comes as a growing number of startups are preparing to list on the bourses. Last week, Zepto filed its UDRHP to raise at least ₹8,010 Cr, while the likes of PhonePe and Curefoods have postponed their IPO citing inclement market conditions. 

What Is ONDC’s DigiDukaan?

• The state-backed network has launched the new platform to digitise B2B procurement for local kirana stores. The platform connects retailers, distributors and brands through a common digital network, enabling stores to place orders and manage procurement.
• Launched in Hyderabad in March via ONDC network participant Qwipo, DigiDukaan has so far onboarded more than 10,000 retailers and 35 brands. It now plans to launch the offering in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi NCR in the coming months.
• DigiDukaan claims to offer better visibility into products and pricing for retailers, while distributors can digitise order collection and expand retailer coverage. Brands can gain access to retailer demand signals and better visibility into secondary sales.

Zetwerk’s FY26 Snapshot

• The manufacturing startup reported an estimated operating revenue of ₹15,900 Cr in FY26, up 24% from ₹12,800 Cr in FY25. As per ratings agency CRISIL, operating margin remained at about 2.6%, an improvement over previous years but still relatively thin.
• The unicorn also boasted an order book of ₹12,000 Cr as of March 2026, which will likely be executed over the next 18 months. Zetwerk also had ₹3,200 Cr in cash and equivalents as of FY26, out of which ₹1,900 Cr remained unencumbered.
• The development comes as Zetwerk gears up for an IPO. In March, the startup filed its draft IPO papers via the confidential route for a $450 Mn public issue, which will comprise a fresh issue of $300 Mn and an OFS of $150 Mn.

AutoVRse Bags $2.4 Mn

• The virtual reality (VR) startup has raised ₹22.7 Cr in a funding round co-led by Singularity AMC and existing investor Lumikai to strengthen product stack and fuel its international expansion in North America and Europe.
• Founded in 2016, AutoVRse captures operational workflows from experienced workers and converts them into structured data that can be used for VR training, digital twins, remote assistance and AI-powered field guidance.
• With more than 50 enterprise clients under its belt, the startup claims that its platform is being used by more than 5 Lakh workers across the globe. It claimed to have crossed $8 Mn in ARR within 12 months of rolling out its global products.

UPI In May

• PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm continued to lead the UPI charts in May, collectively processing more than 2,000 Cr transactions. However, the trio saw a marginal decline in the market share during the month.
• While PhonePe’s market share declined to 46.5% in May from 47.1% in April, Google Pay slipped to 32.9% from 33.5% in the previous month. Similarly, Paytm’s market share fell to 7.9% in May from 8.1% in the previous month.
• However, smaller UPI players like WhatsApp, MobiKwik, Kiwi, among others, saw their cumulative market share jump to 4.3% from 2.4% in April.

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

How Gatisheel Is Automating Water Management

Across farms, factories and cities, water infrastructure still runs on manual oversight. This leads to inefficiencies, wastage and delayed responses to failures. Gatisheel wants to change how pumps and distribution systems are monitored with intelligent water management systems.

The Smart Stack: Founded in 2023, Gatisheel builds IoT hardware and automation software for managing water infrastructure. Its system enables remote monitoring and control of motors, pumps and valves. Users can operate infrastructure in real time, reducing the need for on-site management and enabling faster response to issues.

Control At Fingertips: Gatisheel’s platform also offers intelligent scheduling for automated irrigation and distribution, along with fault detection systems that alert users and guide troubleshooting. It also provides analytics on water flow, electricity consumption, and tank levels, helping optimise usage and prevent resource wastage.

Beyond Agriculture: After launching its initial device in 2023 and a monitoring app in 2024, the startup is now expanding into a B2B enterprise platform, targeting municipal and industrial use cases. Operating in the water management market, which is projected to become a $7.7 Bn opportunity by 2032, can Gatisheel reshape how India manages one of its most vital resources?

Infographic Of The Day

Zepto is racing to catch up to its rivals. While market leader Blinkit commands 2,243 dark stores, the IPO-bound giant operates just half of it. With a ₹8,010 Cr listing on the table, can Zepto close the gap?

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