Indian AI infrastructure start-up raising $1.2B funding from Blackstone
What's the story
Neysa, an Indian start-up specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, has received a $600 million investment from US-based private equity firm Blackstone. The investment aligns with India's efforts to strengthen its domestic AI capabilities. Along with Blackstone, other investors including Teachers's Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Assets, and Nexus Venture Partners are also involved in the funding round for Neysa.
Expansion plans
Neysa aims to raise $600M in debt financing
The Mumbai-based start-up will use the funds from this round to scale its GPU capacity. Neysa is looking to raise an extra $600 million in debt financing, a big jump from the $50 million it had raised earlier. The step comes as demand for AI computing rises globally, creating supply constraints for specialized chips and data center capacity needed to train and run large models.
Market positioning
Neysa is part of 'neo-cloud' infrastructure providers
Neysa is a part of a new breed of AI-focused infrastructure providers, also known as "neo-clouds." These firms provide dedicated GPU capacity and faster deployment than traditional hyperscalers. They cater to enterprises and AI labs with specific regulatory, latency, or customization requirements. Neysa offers customized, GPU-first infrastructure for enterprises, government agencies, and AI developers in India where the demand for local compute is still at an early but rapidly expanding stage.
Customer service
It offers customized, GPU-first infrastructure for enterprises
Neysa's co-founder and CEO Sharad Sanghi said that many customers want hand-holding and round-the-clock support with a 15-minute response time. He added that these are the kinds of things his company provides which some hyperscalers don't. Blackstone Private Equity's Senior Managing Director Ganesh Mani said India currently has less than 60,000 GPUs deployed but expects the figure to jump up nearly 30 times to more than two million in coming years.
Growth strategy
Plans to expand beyond India
Neysa plans to triple its revenue next year as demand for AI workloads accelerates. The company also intends to expand beyond India over time. Founded in 2023, the firm employs 110 people across offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai. Sanghi said most of the new capital will be used to deploy large-scale GPU clusters, while a smaller portion will go toward research and development as well as building out Neysa's software platforms for orchestration, observability and security.