Blackstone-affiliated private equity funds and co-investors have entered into definitive agreements to invest $1.2 billion in Neysa, the artificial intelligence cloud platform founded by Netmagic’s Sharad Sanghi, in what marks one of the largest private capital commitments in India’s AI infrastructure sector.

The deal is structured as $600 million in equity — led by Blackstone with participation from Teachers’ Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Assets, and Nexus Venture Partners — and an additional $600 million in debt financing that Neysa intends to secure on the back of the equity commitment, subject to documentation, the company said. The capital is expected to  fund the deployment of over 20,000 GPUs across India.

Neysa had previously raised $20 million in seed funding in early 2024, led by Matrix Partners India (now Z47), Nexus Venture Partners, and NTTVC. It followed that with a $30 million Series A round in October 2024, co-led by the same investors.

Amit Dixit, head of Asia private equity at Blackstone, said the deal reinforces the firm’s focus on backing “the essential ‘picks and shovels’ of AI globally, including in India, a key market for Blackstone.” Blackstone’s portfolio in AI infrastructure already includes QTS, AirTrunk, CoreWeave, and Firmus.

Ganesh Mani, senior managing director in Blackstone’s private equity division, said digital infrastructure is one of the firm’s highest-conviction investment themes. “This investment positions Neysa to play a meaningful role in advancing AI infrastructure in India and enables businesses and public institutions to deploy AI technologies more effectively,” he said.

Neysa’s flagship AI acceleration cloud platform, Velocis, provides on-demand GPU-based computing for training, fine-tuning, and deploying AI workloads. Its customers span financial services, technology, healthcare, and public services. 

The latest announcement is timed to coincide with the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, which runs from February 16 to 20, and is the first global AI summit of its scale to be hosted in the Global South. India has been expanding its AI compute capacity under the government-backed IndiaAI Mission, which has scaled its common GPU pool to over 38,000 units as of late last year. The Mission, backed by a Rs 10,371 crore outlay, provides subsidised compute access to startups and researchers.

DC Advisory served as lead financial adviser to Neysa, while KPMG advised Blackstone. Legal counsel was provided by Talwar Thakore & Associates (TT&A) for Neysa, and Trilegal and Gibson & Dunn for Blackstone.