Google has partnered with global VC firm Accel to identify and fund India’s earliest-stage AI startups, marking the first collaboration of its kind for the Google AI Futures Fund, launched earlier this year.
Under the new partnership, both companies 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 focus on founders in India and the Indian diaspora who are building AI-driven products from the very beginning.
“The thought process is building AI products for billions of Indians, as well as supporting AI products built in India for global markets,” said Accel partner Prayank Swaroop.
India, home to the world’s second-largest base of smartphone and internet users, offers deep engineering talent but has historically lagged in frontier AI development. This trend may now be shifting as major players like OpenAI and Anthropic expand into the country, and global investors intensify early-stage commitments.
Swaroop noted that the fund will invest across diverse sectors, from creativity and entertainment to SaaS, coding, and even foundational models. The firms also plan to identify areas where large language models are likely to advance in the next 12–24 months and back Indian startups innovating in those directions.
Beyond capital, founders will receive up to $350,000 in compute credits across Google Cloud, Gemini, and DeepMind. They’ll also gain early access to new models, APIs, and experimental features. The program includes mentorship from Accel and Google technical teams, co-development opportunities, and immersion sessions in London and the Bay Area, including at Google I/O. Additional benefits include marketing support and access to Accel’s Atoms network and Google’s broader AI builder ecosystem.
“India has an incredible history of innovation,” said Jonathan Silber, co-founder and director of the Google AI Futures Fund. “This is the Futures Fund’s first such collaboration anywhere in the world, and we chose India for a reason.”
The partnership follows Google’s recent $15 billion plan to build a 1-gigawatt data center and AI hub in India, along with its $10 billion digitization fund launched in 2020. Google has already backed Indian firms like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Flipkart, and recently partnered with Reliance to offer millions of Jio users free access to AI Pro.
The AI Futures Fund, launched in May, has invested in companies such as Replit and Harvey, and has also funded Indian startups like Toonsutra and STAN. Through the Accel partnership, Google will appear on the cap tables of supported startups, though the firm did not disclose how its equity stakes would compare to Accel’s.
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Importantly, Google says the program is not designed to push startups into exclusive use of Google products. Silber emphasized that founders are free to use AI tools from Anthropic, OpenAI, and others, though Google hopes for some unique integrations with its own technology.
Accel’s Atoms platform, created in 2021, has backed more than 40 companies that have raised over $300 million in follow-on funding. The initiative recently expanded to support Indian-origin founders overseas and follows Accel’s partnership with Prosus to co-invest in Atoms X, aimed at early-stage founders building large-scale solutions for India.
Silber stressed that Google’s objective is simple: to accelerate the next wave of AI innovation emerging from India, not to drive cloud sales or prepare acquisition pipelines.
