India’s AI ecosystem is continuing to witness strong capital support, with AI start-ups collectively raising $643 million in funding in 2025, a slight increase of 4.1 per cent in 2024, an analysis of the top 100 Indian AI start-ups from management consulting firm Zinnov, shows.

The top 100 AI start-ups have also posted a combined annual revenue of $593 million in 2025, which implies a 90 per cent median year-on-year growth. 

While overall funding in 2025 has kept pace with previous years, there has been a 39 per cent drop in deal volumes, indicating that investors are writing larger checks to fewer startups, the report said. The median cheque size stood at $16 million.

Despite an encouraging number of startups, the report however flagged that nearly 90 per cent of the top 100 startups in India are in the AI application layer - companies whose tools operate on top of models developed by frontier labs. Out of these, enterprise SaaS, Healthcare and Logistics are the major domains in which Indian startups are building solutions. 

Beyond the application layer, the report highlighted seven startups in the physical agent layer like robotics and drones, four in the model layer, building sovereign AI models. 

When it comes to job creation, the AI start-ups posted a 29 per cent average growth in headcount with the top 100 start-ups now employing about 19,180 total AI professionals. 

Geographically, Bengaluru continues to dominate the landscape, with the city being home to 39 per cent of India’s AI start-ups. 

Published on April 26, 2026