India's first GenAI unicorn Krutrim pivots to cloud services
On Tuesday, Krutrim, which is recognized as India's inaugural GenAI unicorn, revealed a strategic pivot from developing AI models to focusing on cloud services, following a significant business restructuring in late 2025. This change comes after the launch of its Krutrim-2 model more than a year ago. Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal, the startup secured $50 million in funding at a valuation of $1 billion in January 2024, with revenues reaching ₹3 billion ($31.52 million) in FY2026. In April, Krutrim laid off over 200 employees and discontinued its Kruti AI assistant app. The company serves over 25 enterprise clients, with a majority of its GPU capacity allocated to external projects. Competitors like Sarvam are actively innovating, presenting new models and collaborations at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.
Key facts
- Krutrim is shifting from AI model development to cloud services.
- The pivot follows a business overhaul in late 2025 that included pausing chip design.
- Krutrim released its Krutrim-2 base model over a year ago.
- The startup did not participate in India's AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.
- Rival Sarvam participated in multiple sessions at the summit.
- Krutrim laid off over 200 roles in the past year.
- The Kruti AI assistant app was removed from app stores in April.
- Krutrim generated about ₹3 billion in revenue in FY2026 with first annual net profit.
- Over 25 enterprise customers use Krutrim's AI cloud services.
- Sanchit Vir Gogia of Greyhound Research commented on the pivot.
Entities
Artists
- Bhavish Aggarwal
Institutions
- Krutrim
- Ola
- Ola Electric
- Anthropic
- OpenAI
- xAI
- Sarvam
- Greyhound Research
- Pixxel
- TechCrunch
Locations
- Bengaluru
- India
- New Delhi
- United States