In the face of global geopolitical shifts, Indian VCs and startup investors are increasingly seeing AI and SaaS investments as the moat for the Indian startup ecosystem in competing against big tech giants globally.

As international markets grapple with supply chain disruptions and economic uncertainties, India’s SaaS sector in particular has the opportunity to become a symbol of resilience and innovation. We are already seeing signs of an AI and SaaS convergence, thanks to newer and improved large language models emerging from AI giants such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta.

But the entry of DeepSeek and smaller language models has upended the competitive landscape a fair bit, and added more fuel to the AI fire, particular for SaaS-focused VCs in India.

The integration of GenAI models into SaaS has not only enhanced product capabilities, but also attracted significant venture capital interest, bringing a new wave of deals for Indian startups in the enterprise tech segment.

Indian SaaS VCs Raise The Ante

More than 35 deals have been recorded in the first two months of the year in the SaaS and enterprise tech space, with the likes of Darwinbox and healthcare SaaS giant Innovaccer leading the way with mega rounds.

Among other prominent deals were the investments for SaaS startups such as Spotdraft, Atomicwork, SuperOps and TrueFoundry. And each of these companies is banking on AI to unlock the next phase of growth.

This past week, US-based venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners closed its second India-focussed fund with a corpus of $350 Mn (INR 3,052.3 Cr) to support early stage startups. The global VC firm is looking to invest in startups across sectors like AI-enabled services and SaaS, fintech, digital health, consumer brands and cybersecurity.

A large part of the capital........

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