Agentic AI startup Gyaan AI has rebranded itself as MaxIQ and raised $7.8 million (about INR 68 crore) in a seed funding round led by Dell Technologies Capital, along with participation from Intel Capital. The Pune-based startup plans to use the fresh capital to scale operations, boost product innovation, and expand its leadership team. Founded in 2022 by Sonny Aulakh, MaxIQ is an AI-based sales enablement platform designed to help B2B SaaS companies manage their revenue across the entire customer lifecycle. The startup is introducing a first-of-its-kind AI-driven customer journey management platform, aimed at driving revenue growth by integrating customer acquisition processes with post-sales processes.
MaxIQ has appointed Matt Hickey as CEO and Rob Sexton as Chief Revenue Officer. Both executives bring significant experience from companies such as Palo Alto Networks, EMC, and Securiti.ai. As former C-suite executives, they have worked on category-disrupting technologies like Data Domain, XtremIO, and CloudGenix. Founder Aulakh will continue to lead the product innovation division and work on expanding MaxIQ’s market presence. He brings over 20 years of experience working with major tech giants like Dell, EMC, Pure Storage, Cisco, as well as growth-stage startups such as IronPort, XtremIO, and Zscaler.
Agentic AI is becoming the latest buzzword in the Indian tech industry. Agentic AI refers to autonomous GenAI agents capable of performing complex tasks with little or no human supervision. Companies like Gupshup, Zomato, Infosys, and Zoho Corporation are building Agentic AI solutions tailored to the needs of their customers. In India, Agentic AI is largely being applied in conversational bots. For example, conversational AI platform Gupshup recently launched a library of 15 pre-built and customizable AI agents, which are being used by startups like Lenskart and Cars24, as well as companies like Kotak and Tata AIA in the financial sector. Zoho Corporation has also introduced Zia Agents, an AI-powered platform for integrating autonomous agents into business workflows, along with Zia Agent Studio, a no-code or low-code platform for businesses to create autonomous agents suited to their needs.
Investors are placing significant bets on Agentic AI startups, as evidenced by Bengaluru-based startup Quash raising $635,000 (about INR 5.4 crore) in its pre-seed funding round led by Arali Ventures in January. With startups and established tech companies embracing Agentic AI, it’s clear that the market for autonomous AI agents is expanding rapidly in India.
