Sharad Sanghi’s Neysa raises $20 mn in seed funding led by Matrix Partners
Neysa, India’s first AI cloud and platform-as-a-service startup, has secured $20 million in seed funding, led by Matrix Partners India, Nexus Venture Partners, and NTTVC.
Neysa is the second entrepreneurial stint of Sharad Sanghi, considered a pioneer of the Indian cloud computing space. His first venture, Netmagic Solutions, a cloud and data centre business, was acquired by Japanese data centre major NTT Communication. This time around, Sanghi is co-founding the company with Anindya Das.
The funding will help drive the Generative-AI-cloud platform as a service and observability for India and the global markets. Neysa will focus on three areas—AI on cloud, network observability, and security observability.
According to Sanghi, founder and chief executive officer, these offerings from Neysa will be unique from an Indian company. While there are players in the AI infrastructure space, the network and security observability is a fast-growing space with hardly any competition in India.
“Each of these spaces has huge potential to grow. The AI infrastructure space is expected to grow at 30 per cent compound annual growth rate. Over 20 per cent growth in the AI as a platform services offering and around 11-15 per cent in the observability and remediation space. Plus, we are building our own intellectual property out of India,” he told Business Standard.
Neysa will offer a suite of Generative AI platform and services, helping clients discover, plan, deploy, and manage their Generative AI projects cost-effectively and secure their AI landscapes in the cloud and at the edge in a consumption-based model. Neysa is planning to release its services in the third quarter of 2024.
The startup has been in stealth mode for about 15 months, and Sanghi has infused his own funds. The current round of funding will be used for infrastructure buildup, accelerating research and development initiatives, enhancing engineering teams, and finally for its go-to-market strategy.
“Our goal is to leverage this funding to push the limits of innovation, assisting our clients with the power of our end-to-end Generative AI Platform as a Service ecosystem and our AI-engineered Observability Platform, in a way that provides demonstrable and tangible outcomes for their business,” said Sanghi.
Anindya Das, co-founder and chief technology officer, adds, “Neysa was conceived from a deep understanding of the day-to-day challenges faced in managing and scaling cloud and the transformative potential of AI. This funding boosts our mission to democratize AI, empowering companies of all sizes to ignite innovation and drive growth. We’re building a future where AI integration is seamless, intuitive, and fundamentally changes the way we interact with technology.”
Neysa has also managed to raise $20 million in seed funding when startups are finding it difficult to raise funds.
Avnish Bajaj, managing director, Matrix Partners India said, “Having known Sharad and Andy for a long time, it is our privilege to partner with them on their next venture. Enterprises globally, and even more so in India, are eager for expertise in helping them transition to AI-native cloud computing, and there is no better and more experienced team in India for them to partner with! We are excited about the future of Neysa and the journey ahead.”
Neysa’s initial workloads will be hosted at NTT data centres. Sanghi also added that since they are focused on AI and generative AI, Neysa will also invest in GPU-based servers.
Jishnu Bhattacharjee, managing director, Nexus Venture Partners said, “The meteoric rise of demand for AI globally calls for an AI-native cloud platform that Neysa is all set to offer. Having known and backed Sharad and Andy previously at Netmagic, we are thrilled to partner with them again in Neysa’s journey, as they shape the future of AI cloud services!”
Though Sanghi will not be an executive member at NTT anymore, his association with the Japanese firm continues. He will be on the board of NTT’s data center business.
Vab Goel, founding partner, NTTVC and board member of NTT Data Inc. remarked, “Generative AI is a key topic of every boardroom discussion, Neysa will help enterprises gain a competitive advantage by accelerating a new era of productivity. We are excited to continue our partnership with Sharad and Andy.”
First Published: Apr 10 2024 | 6:10 AM IST