Bessemer Venture Partners is intensifying its focus on AI-first startups emerging from India, signalling a decisive shift in how global capital views the country’s deep-tech potential. As the US$283 billion IT services sector faces disruption from automation and generative AI, investors are now seeking startups that can augment—or outright reinvent—the traditional outsourcing model.

According to senior partners, Bessemer’s India team currently reviews 20 to 30 AI-focused startups every week, with a strong emphasis on those building tools and infrastructure for enterprise automation, code generation, and intelligent service delivery. The fund typically deploys US$3–6 million at the pre-seed and seed stages, with the ability to scale up investments to US$15 million in follow-on rounds for high-performing ventures.

This marks a strategic evolution in Bessemer’s India thesis—from consumer-facing apps to core enterprise intelligence platforms that could redefine how IT services are delivered. By backing startups that are embedding AI into system integration, support, analytics, and workflow management, the firm aims to create value chains that are not merely cheaper, but smarter and more scalable.

For India’s startup ecosystem, this momentum reinforces a growing narrative: AI is no longer a vertical—it’s the new horizontal layer reshaping every business function, particularly in service-heavy industries.

Bessemer’s approach exemplifies a broader investor sentiment that “AI for IT” may become India’s next global export, following in the footsteps of SaaS. The next wave of venture-backed winners could well be those building AI platforms that sit atop legacy service models, transforming them into adaptive, insight-driven ecosystems.