• Building AI for the next 6 billion people

    AI could change lives for 6bn people in emerging markets...

    We are building next-gen AI companies and

    a global "idea to impact" ecosystem to make it possible...

  • Why chapter.ai ?

    For creating a sustainable man-machine society of future

    1

    AI for next 6bn

    Over the past few years, Artificial intelligence is being used to revolutionise the lives of more than a billion people living in developed nations.
     

    But what about the 6bn people living in the developing world?


    The developing world presents unique problem sets and thus requires unique solutions - which may not be built out of the traditional AI clusters in Silicon Valley or elsewhere.

    2

    Solving societal problems

    AI could have powerful answers to explore how we can reduce the cost of living in the areas of healthcare, housing, education, food/agriculture and mobility, which could really change the quality of life in the developing world.

     

    Thinking deeply about applications of AI for next 6bn people is also going to give us broader answers to larger AI questions, which could lead to more sustainable future for all of us.

    3

    "Idea to Impact" ecosystem

    Solutions can be found by putting together the required capital, talent, research, data & domain resources in an "idea to impact" ( University->AI Research Park -> AI foundry -> VC/PE ) eco-system. This ecosystem can power the creation of sustainable AI companies to drive the massive societal change required for sustainable man-machine future.

    We are piloting this ecosystem by creating the first AI research park & AI foundry in Bangalore, India devoted to AI for 6bn.

     

     
     
     
  • Our Mission

    Inclusive growth of AI for all of us

    1. Lower Cost of Living with AI

    6 bn people impacted with quality of life improvement

    (Food, Transport, Housing, Health & Education in <$100/m)

    Enabling a lower cost of living will make possible a welfare state that provides a safety net at scale to all its citizens.
    For example, if we can reduce the cost of living to less than $ 100/m, the entire Indian population can be supported with $1tn. With leapfrog solutions leveraging AI in healthcare, we are already seeing a path to reduce the cost of healthcare by 1/10th. This also potentially will also open up new markets worth $6tn in developing nations. At AI foundry, we are aggressively working on turning ideas like these into sustainable companies.

    2. Access to AI awareness, education and enablement

    Network of 25 global AI clusters activated with 200 impact centres across the globe

    By connecting AI rich clusters in US, Canada, UK & Sweden with India, Middle East, Southeast Asia & Africa, it is possible to make AI more accessible to larger populations. This will help reduce the gap between AI haves and AI have-nots, lowering the odds that the world will get dominated by an AI monopoly.

    3. Open IP in AI and open use-cases

    10,000 AI open use cases & IP supporting inclusive access to AI

     

    While data would be bound by regional boundaries, talent and IP are two resources for AI that can flow across regions. By creating open IP in AI and making knowledge of use-cases widely available, AI deficient regions can quickly bootstrap an ecosystem from this access while leveraging their own data banks.

  • AI foundry (AI focused venture studio)

    We provide capital, data, talent, domain & research to grow AI first companies for 6bn users

    1

    Ideate & Research

    We work with leading entrepreneurs, universities or partners/govt. to trigger potentially leapfrog ideas in the chosen sectors. We work deeply with them to bring validated AI research to a level where it can be prototyped.

    2

    Prototype

    We help prototype the research to create a product with our resources and network of EIRs (Entrepreneurs in Residence) and TIRs (Technologists in Residence). We provide capital and infra support for product design, development and distribution.

    3

    Product to market

    Once the idea reaches the product market fit, we help launch it as a company along with entrepreneurs in residence, the team & strategic investors/VCs. We continue to work closely with the company post the launch as cofounders.

    4

    Scale

    We help the company scale by providing capital, data sets, cutting edge AI research talent, partner network and IP access, in the growth and scale stage. This way we aim to grow a cluster of 20-25 AI companies for next 6bn users

  • Core Initiators

    Bringing together experiences from Venture capital, IP management and AI research for change

    Co-founder

    Before co-founding Chapter.ai & AI foundry, Umakant co-founded pi Ventures, a $35m early stage fund for AI (India’s first & only AI focused fund), investing in leading AI companies in India (Sigtuple, Niramai, Ten3THealth, Zenatix, Locus.sh and others). He has spent more than 10 years in AI space (Founded India’s first AI bot startup in '09) as an entrepreneur, strategy thinker and investor in enterprise, healthcare and logistics. Ex-Director India for Science Inc., he spent time in strategy and innovation roles at Wipro Ltd, one of the leading IT Services company. IIT Kanpur Alum and an abstract painter in his spare time.

    Co-founder

    Neeraj was one of the early contributors to Torch, the deep learning framework, back in the days when neural nets used to work only on super-compute. He founded FormulateIP based in India and Canada with focus on helping AI businesses using IP protection, licensing and strategic planning. He also co-founded Excubator, one of the leading startup incubators in Bangalore. He is Governing Council Member at IIT Alumni Centre Bengaluru, IITACB. Masters in Mathematics from KTH, Stockholm with a Minor in Machine Learning. Alumnus of IIT Roorkee.

    Co-founder

    Pulkit is focused on working in common sense AI, one of the next big evolutions in AI. He is Asst. Professor at MIT CSAIL & Co-founder of SafelyYou Inc, which is applying computer vision to prevent falls in elder care homes. His research focuses on curiosity driven machines & common sense problem in Robots. He has a PhD from BAIR (Berkeley AI Research) and Bachelors from IIT Kanpur. He was awarded Director’s Gold Medal for best all round achievement and leadership at IIT Kanpur and is excited by the quest for singularity.

    Pioneer

    Bal Krishna Birla

    Bal Krishna Birla is a serial entrepreneur in retail and content areas. He was the CTO of Asklaila, one of the first classified sites in India. He also was also the co-founder and CEO of ZopNow, one of the early entrants into the grocery e-commerce space. He also runs an initiative to fight fake news called Check4spam. He has built a large volunteer (5 lakh+) driven community called”Bhoole Bisre Geet”. His core area of expertise is technology, SEO & digital marketing and product. He is alumnus of IIT Kanpur (Comp.Sc.).

    Pioneer

    Subhashis Banerjee

    Subhashis is an investment banker and has previously worked for Standard Chartered Bank Real Estate Private Equity Fund, Tata Housing Development Company, Sequoia Capital, Tishman Speyer Private Equity Fund. He has worked and lived in most major cities of India and understands the real estate dynamics of those cities well. The list includes Mumbai, Bangalore, NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.

    Has been deeply involved in deals for both the residential market and office market as an investment banker. An alumnus of IIT Kanpur and IIM Calcutta.

    Pioneer

    Rohit Rathi

    Rohit Rathi shouldered the responsibility of technology and product development for Smartron, one of the most innovative mobile phone companies out of India. He spearheaded advanced R&D, innovation and IP creation in the areas of smart, sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence, cloud and big data technologies. In the past, he has been Founder-Director and CTO of Notion Ink and pioneered the effort to make the country’s first tablet device. Prior to that, he worked with Xilinx-India in 2008-2009. Mr. Rathi is an IIT Kharagpur graduate and likes to think about design deeply.

    Pioneer

    Ramkumar G

    Ram Ganesan is a CA and CPA of USA and has over 20 years of experience in corporate finance, project funding, venture capital, governance, legal and audit, profit-center management, driving business strategies and more in leading companies in the Indian industry. He has also been an entrepreneur for over 10 years in Health care BPO, Corporate training, and Education. He has previously served as CFO of Opinio, a logistics technology venture, Health Office and Indal Hydro Ltd. He is an adventurous & brutally honest person whose inquisitive mind leads him into deep explorations of the universe. Other interests include cooking, tennis, reading and tourism.

  • Companies

    A peek into the ideas brewing at the AI Foundry

    Newswa

    News redefined

    AI driven news engine for the next 100 million users coming online

    Karmabank

    AI driven financial services

    For the unbanked
    300m users