Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, will pick up a majority stake in Indian AI infrastructure startup Neysa as it is leading a $600 million (around Rs 5,445 crore) round of equity funding in the company founded by serial entrepreneur Sharad Sanghi.
Mumbai-based Neysa, which provides AI cloud and platform-as-a-service, will leverage the equity capital to secure an equal amount in debt, taking the total size of the financing round to $1.2 billion, the startup and Blackstone said in a joint statement.
Teachers’ Venture Growth, the late-stage venture and growth equity investment arm of Canadian pension fund Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, also participated in the equity round. Indian PE firm TVS Capital, asset management firm 360 ONE Asset as well as existing Neysa investor Nexus Venture Partners chipped in, too.
Neysa did not reveal its valuation in the latest round but media reports pegged it around $1.4 billion (around Rs 12,704 crore), marking its likely entry into the coveted unicorn club.
Separately, a spokesperson for Neysa confirmed to VCCircle that the PE firm will take a majority stake in the startup.
“This capital allows us to deepen our AI native platform and expand capacity in India, including the planned deployment of over 20,000 GPUs over time. The work ahead is about execution, resilience and long-term platform building,” Sanghi said in a LinkedIn post.
Sanghi set up the startup in January 2023, along with former Netmagic executive Anindya Das, who is the chief technology officer of Neysa. Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur BV Jagadeesh, who previously set up data centre company Exodus communications, is the startup’s chairman.
The startup designs and develops AI systems that are deployed and operated within India and provides a purpose‑built and cost-effective GPU‑based AI infrastructure that enables enterprises and institutions to train, fine‑tune, and deploy AI workloads.
The company last raised $30 million in external funding in October 2024 in its Series A round co-led by its three existing investors–Japanese telecom giant NTT’s venture capital arm NTTVC, VC firms Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India) and Nexus Venture Partners. The three investors had also backed the startup in its seed round in April 2024, when it raised $20 million.
“(The investment) reinforces Blackstone’s focus on backing the essential 'picks and shovels' of AI globally, including in India, a key market for Blackstone. With our scale, deep expertise, and track record of building market-leading businesses, we believe we are well-positioned to support Neysa’s next phase of growth and the advancement of India’s AI transformation,” said Amit Dixit, Head of Asia Private Equity at Blackstone.
Blackstone has also backed QTS, world’s largest data centre platform; AirTrunk, a data centre platform in the Asia Pacific region; CoreWeave, a specialised cloud infrastructure company; and Firmus, an Australian-based AI infrastructure platform.
