Ashish Kumar Shares Insights on Funding AI Startups in India 🇮🇳 | Escape Velocity

Ashish Kumar, Co-founder and General Partner at Fundamentum, discusses India’s evolving role in the global AI ecosystem and emphasizes the country’s potential to develop not just AI applications but also foundational infrastructure over time. Although India may not immediately match the massive funding behind organizations like OpenAI or Anthropic, Kumar believes the nation can thrive by creating specialized use cases, “small language models,” and domain-specific AI solutions. This approach, he argues, demands relatively less capital and can still generate significant impact.

He also highlights the importance of geopolitics in shaping India’s AI landscape. With potential trade barriers and export controls on advanced technology, India’s self-reliance becomes increasingly critical. Drawing a parallel to how the Indian Space Research Organisation built cost-effective space capabilities, he suggests that India can similarly build AI infrastructure to serve its own market—and potentially export it to other lower-GDP countries seeking affordable solutions.