Anthropic and India’s Sarvam AI build rival artificial intelligence (AI) systems on different continents. Yet the two labs are quietly tied together, and the connection has nothing to do with their technology.
The link sits inside their cap tables. The same global investors that fund the maker of Claude have also placed money into India’s most prominent AI startup.
Lightspeed Anchors Both Companies
Lightspeed Venture Partners led Anthropic’s $3.5 billion Series E round in March 2025. The financing valued the Claude maker at $61.5 billion.
Indian corporate filings tell a parallel story. Lightspeed entities hold equity shares, preference shares, and convertible debentures in Axonwise Private Limited.
Axonwise is the legal entity behind Sarvam AI, which recently raised $234 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar founded the company in 2023. Therefore, the same firm anchors a frontier US lab and an Indian challenger at once.
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General Catalyst’s Indian Backdoor
General Catalyst’s link to Sarvam runs through an acquisition. In 2024, the firm linked up with Venture Highway, an India-focused seed investor.
Venture Highway Fund III holds Series A convertible debentures in Sarvam. General Catalyst also backs Anthropic and Mistral AI in France. That places it across three of the most-watched AI labs.
Besides Anthropic, the same filings tie Sarvam to OpenAI as well. Khosla Ventures holds Sarvam equity and Series A preference shares. The firm was OpenAI’s first venture capital investor.
The shared backers do not make the AI firms partners. However, they show how concentrated AI funding has become. The same names increasingly decide which labs scale, from San Francisco to Bengaluru.
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