BENGALURU: Former Meta chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg is learnt to have made her second
investment
in Bengaluru-based
GenAI startup
Simplismart, sources told TOI.
Sandberg is participating in a $7-million funding round for the startup, showcasing Sandberg’s continued interest in the Indian startup landscape, particularly in GenAI. The round is being led by Accel, sources added.
Simplismart, founded by BITS Pilani alumni Amritanshu Jain and Devansh Ghatak, assists customers in deploying GenAI models using its high-speed inference engine, which is available across various cloud providers for scalable and cost-effective solutions.
The company has previously secured funding from Titan Capital, Shastra VC, and First Cheque in a seed round. It counts Vodex, Dubverse, and Mobavenue as some of its customers.
“Investors in the Valley are actively evaluating generative AI and Simplismart just made the cut, the deal will be announced soon,” a source said.
Prior to starting
Simplismart
, Jain worked across machine learning engineering roles at Oracle and Capillary Technologies. Ghatak, on the other hand, worked across engineering roles at Avaamo and Google. Prior to this investment, Sandberg’s only known exposure to the Indian startup ecosystem was as a client of Iconiq Capital, a US investment management firm that has funded companies like Flipkart.
Sandberg did not respond to an email seeking comment till the time of going to press. Simplismart’s Jain told TOI that Sandberg is not participating in any investment round in the company. Online news chronicler Entrackr had earlier reported about Accel buying into the GenAI startup. Sandberg has also invested in another GenAI startup Ema that enhances productivity across roles in an organisation by automating complex workflows through simple conversations. TOI had recently reported how Ema’s no-code platform allows users to build and deploy custom AI agents (personas) using natural language.
