NVIDIA has partnered with AI Grants India (AIGI), an AI-focused non-profit, to support early-stage founders in India through the NVIDIA Inception startup programme, with the initiative aiming to help enable up to 500 new AI startups over the next 12 months.
AIGI said the collaboration is designed to reach over 10,000 early-stage founders in the next year through access to AI tools, technical training and other benefits intended to help teams move faster from concept to product.
What founders get: model access, training and infrastructure support
Co-founded by Bhasker (Bosky) Kode and Vaibhav Domkundwar, AIGI positions itself as a platform providing inference, infrastructure, grants and resources for early AI builders, as per the company. It said the goal is to remove a key hurdle for founders, paid model access, by offering instant access to the latest AI models.
As part of the collaboration, early-stage teams will be introduced to NVIDIA Inception, a free, stage-agnostic programme that supports AI startups building on NVIDIA’s ecosystem. NVIDIA said the programme offers access to developer tools and training, preferred pricing on NVIDIA hardware and software, partner offers and exposure to a global network of venture capital firms.
Programme roadmap
AIGI said its planned programming over the next 12–18 months will focus on founder enablement at scale. This includes expanded AI model access, hosting credits, mentorship office hours, partner workshops, grants and fellowships aimed at accelerating early technical validation and productisation for AI-first teams.
The collaboration also includes onboarding support for eligible startups into NVIDIA Inception, with select teams expected to get access to accelerated computing resources through Inception benefits to build and iterate faster.
What AIGI and NVIDIA said
“India’s next wave of AI innovation will be built by early teams that have the technical depth to execute, but need faster access to the right tooling, mentorship and ecosystem pathways,” Bhasker (Bosky) Kode, co-founder of AI Grants India, said.
Tobias Halloran, director of EMEAI startups and venture capital at NVIDIA, said India’s AI startup ecosystem is primed for acceleration and that NVIDIA aims to support founders through accelerated computing, scalable infrastructure and programmes such as NVIDIA Inception and the Inception VC Alliance.
AIGI said the announcement comes amid momentum around the India–AI Impact Summit 2026, hosted by the Government of India under the IndiaAI Mission in New Delhi. AIGI also listed startups such as Mindloop, Pulse, Mixio, Embedr, Kenesis, Zuve Studio and 45D AI among those that have come out of its ecosystem.