Google has teamed up with Accel to identify and fund India’s earliest-stage AI startups—a first-of-its-kind collaboration under Google’s AI Frontier Fund, launched earlier this year.
On Tuesday, Accel and Google announced they will jointly invest up to $2 million per startup through Accel’s Atoms program, with each contributing up to $1 million. The 2026 cohort will specifically target founders from India and the Indian diaspora who are building AI-native products from day one.
“Our goal is to develop AI products for billions of Indians while also supporting AI innovations built in India for the global market,” said Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel.
India represents a highly compelling market, boasting the world’s second-largest internet and smartphone user base—second only to China—and a deep pool of engineering talent. However, it still lags in frontier model development and has yet to produce many companies pushing the boundaries of AI, an area currently dominated by the U.S. and China.
That dynamic is beginning to shift as major players like OpenAI and Anthropic recently announced plans to establish local offices, and global investors ramp up commitments to early-stage ventures. The bet is that if India’s ecosystem can channel its talent and market demand into original research and product development, its mobile-first population, expanding cloud infrastructure, and relatively low software costs could position it as a significant force in the global AI landscape.
Swaroop noted the investment scope spans nearly any vertical—creativity, entertainment, coding, and the future of work. “The future of work will be more inclusive, essentially covering SaaS and all other application categories,” he said. “It might even include foundational models.”
The initiative will also aim to pinpoint areas where large language models are likely to make strides over the next 12–24 months and back Indian startups building in those directions.
Beyond capital, selected founders will receive up to $350,000 in compute credits for Google Cloud, Gemini, and DeepMind, along with early access to Gemini and DeepMind models, APIs, and experimental features. The program includes support from Google Labs and DeepMind research teams, co-development opportunities, monthly mentorship from Accel partners and Google technical leads, and immersive sessions in London and the Bay Area—including at Google I/O. Founders will also benefit from marketing support via Accel and Google’s global channels and gain entry to the Atoms founder network and Google’s AI Builders ecosystem.
“India has an incredible legacy of innovation, and we firmly believe its founders will lead the next wave of AI-driven global technology,” said Jonathan Silber, Co-Founder and Director of Google’s AI Frontier Fund. “This marks the fund’s first such partnership globally—and we chose India for good reason. Google has been a committed partner in the country’s digital transformation journey, investing billions over the years.”
This collaboration follows Google’s recent $15 billion plan to build a 1-gigawatt data center and AI hub in India. The company previously launched a $10 billion Digital India Fund in 2020, backing firms like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Walmart-owned Flipkart. Last month, Google partnered with Reliance to offer free AI Pro access to millions of Jio users.
Launched in May, the AI Frontier Fund serves as a dedicated vehicle for investing in and collaborating with global AI startups. It has already backed companies like Replit and Harvey and made direct investments in Indian startups such as Toonsutra and STAN.
Silber confirmed that Google will appear on the cap table of startups funded through this partnership and will be “a meaningful presence,” though he declined to compare equity stakes between Google and Accel.
“We’re partnering with market leaders who deeply understand this region, enabling us to engage with founders at the earliest stages and accelerate progress,” Silber explained.
While using Google’s tools may be a natural choice for applicants, both Silber and Swaroop emphasized that startups aren’t required to exclusively adopt Gemini or any other Google product.
“Sometimes Google’s technology is the best fit. Other times, you’ll see teams using Anthropic or OpenAI,” Silber said. “We don’t impose strict requirements to use only Google models. That said, we’re eager to find unique integrations where we can jointly leverage Google AI capabilities.”
Accel’s pre-seed and seed platform, Atoms, launched in 2021, has supported over 40 companies that have collectively raised more than $300 million in follow-on funding. This year, the program expanded to include Indian-origin founders based overseas.
The new Google partnership comes just days after Accel joined forces with Prosus to co-invest in Atoms X, targeting early-stage Indian founders building scalable solutions with nationwide impact.
Silber stressed that Google isn’t structuring these partnerships as acquisition pipelines—or even as pathways to future cloud customers.
“We’re not a sales team, so signing up new cloud customers isn’t our priority,” he said. “Our key performance metric is simple: we want to see the next wave of AI innovation emerge from India.”
