Activate Launches $75M AI Fund to Support Indian Startups

Former Haptik CEO Aakrit Vaish and ex-Together Fund partner Pratyush Choudhary have launched Activate, a venture capital fund targeting $75 Mn to support early-stage AI-led innovation in India.

The fund will invest $500K to $3 Mn in startups working on AI applications, foundational models, infrastructure, and emerging tech linked to AI adoption.

Vaish announced the launch in a social post, stating:

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

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… pic.twitter.com/OgruUnBOPf

— Aakrit Vaish (@aakrit) December 3, 2025

Backing India’s Expanding AI Ecosystem

The rise of AI-driven use cases and enterprise adoption in India has strengthened investor confidence. Activate expects these shifts from infrastructure to AI-native applications to fuel demand for deep technology ventures.

Its LP network spans well-known names from global tech and startup ecosystems, including Aravind Srinivas (Perplexity), Ronnie Screwvala (upGrad), Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures), and several senior AI leaders from Meta, Tesla, OpenAI and others.

Product and Investment Experience

Vaish co-founded Haptik in 2013 to build conversational AI solutions for enterprises. The company scaled into use cases like travel bookings and food delivery automation, with clients such as Swiggy, Zepto and Paytm, before being acquired by Reliance Jio in 2019. He stepped down from the CEO role earlier this year.

Choudhary has been active in AI investing since 2021, backing companies including Privado, DhiWise and Protecto.ai during his tenure at Together Fund.

As angel investors, the duo have previously supported companies such as Composio, Sri Mandir, Spry, ZuAI, Emergent, Park+, Rapidclaims, and Spendflo.

According to the fund’s thesis, the AI opportunity in India spans five layers: applications, infrastructure tools, foundational models, rapid computing, and physical infrastructure like data centres and cooling systems.

The primary goal of Activate is to help product-focused teams accelerate early builds and scale globally from India.