Meet Aakrit Vaish, Founder Of India's $75 Million AI Venture Fund 'Activate'

Aakrit Vaish, founder of Activate, spoke at the NDTV Ind.AI Summit on Wednesday. He participated in a panel discussion titled “Investing in the AI Advantage.” The session brings key voices from the venture capital and early-stage investment ecosystem together for a discussion on how funding strategies are evolving in the AI era.

He shared the stage with Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director at 247; Ashutosh Sharma, India Head of Investments & M&A at Prosus; Manav Garg, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Together Fund; and Harshjit Sethi, an early-stage investor. The discussion focused on how investors are backing scalable AI businesses and deploying capital for long-term growth.

Who Is Aakrit Vaish?

Aakrit Vaish is an entrepreneur and investor who has worked in artificial intelligence for over a decade. He runs Activate, positioned as India's first homegrown venture capital firm built specifically for AI companies.

Vaish completed his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He began his career in San Francisco as the 12th employee at Flurry, a mobile analytics startup that was later acquired by Yahoo in a $280 million deal.

In 2013, Vaish co-founded Haptik, focusing on conversational AI. He was also the CEO. Haptik expanded to multiple global locations, including New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Singapore, and worked with large clients such as KFC, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Oyo Rooms, Kotak Life, and Dream11. The company processes close to 100 million users annually.

After the acquisition of Haptik in 2019, Vaish spent a year as a full-time advisor to the Government on the National AI Mission.

He founded Activate in December 2025.

Vaish has been active as an angel investor, backing over 100 startups across consumer internet, SaaS, and direct-to-consumer brands. His portfolio includes companies such as Unacademy, Third Wave Coffee, Dataweave, Tookitaki, Dil Mil, and iON Energy, among others.

He co-founded the Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM), a non-profit focused on strengthening the city's technology ecosystem, and serves as its Co-Chair. He also chairs the Mumbai chapter of H2, a global leadership network for technology founders.

Vaish has been featured in the Entrepreneur 35 Under 35 and Business World 40 Under 40 lists. In 2023, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

About Activate

Activate is a venture capital firm focused on artificial intelligence. The fund was launched in December 2025 by Vaish and Pratyush Choudhury, formerly of Together Fund.

The firm has announced a corpus of $75 million and is targeting early-stage investments, from pre-seed to seed rounds. Activate plans to back AI-native startups across applications, infrastructure, and foundational models.

The fund typically writes cheques ranging from $500,000 to $3 million, with a focus on companies building core artificial intelligence products from India for global markets.

Activate plans to back startups across the AI value chain, including infrastructure, foundational models, and applications.

Activate is supported by a global network of technology leaders and investors. Backers include Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, Perplexity founder Aravind Srinivas, and Peak XV Partners' Shailendra Singh, along with senior figures from OpenAI, Meta, and Tesla AI.