Mukesh Bansal’s Nurix AI bags $27.5 mn from General Catalyst, Accel

Mukesh Bansal (Centre) with Nurix AI founding team

Nurix AI, a startup founded by Myntra and Cultfit founder Mukesh Bansal, on September 24 announced it has raised $27.5 million across seed and Series A financing in a round co-led by General Catalyst and Accel.

The firm, which offers agentic artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for enterprises, aims to capitalise on the current craze surrounding the nascent but rapidly growing generative AI space.

"We are currently in a gold rush phase for AI in the enterprise. Anyone who services enterprise is trying to figure out their game for AI. India already has a huge lead on the services front. We felt that a firm with deep AI talent and focused on implementing AI projects would translate into a significant opportunity" Bansal told Moneycontrol in an interview.

Bansal said that AI will have the most significant impact on enterprises, driving a significant boost in productivity, efficiency, and overall quality of experience for many companies.

However, he believes that AI will not work out of the box for these firms, as it requires a lot of integrations within the existing processes and systems. Additionally, substantial customisation is necessary due to AI's 'hallucination' problem, and enterprises want robust security with on-premise implementations, among other requirements.

The Meraki Labs model

Nurix AI is the latest firm incubated by Bansal's venture studio Meraki Labs, which also participated in the funding round. The startup studio works with entrepreneurs to co-build companies from scratch and provide initial funding ranging from $250,000 to $5 million.

"We focus on a single venture every 12-18 months. The idea is to pick up a topic, go very deep, help build a team, money, and product-market fit. Only when it is in good shape, we think of the next topic" Bansal said.

Last year, the studio incubated Lyskraft, a retail fashion omnichannel startup focused on premium fashion for Gen Z audience. The startup is headed by Mohit Gupta, a seasoned operator who has previously worked at Zomato and MakeMyTrip, with Bansal serving as a strategic advisor.

Lyskraft raised $26 million funding led by Peak XV Partners with participation from Prosus, Sofina and the partners of DST Global in August 2023. Meraki Labs also counts Skyroot, Groww, Gigforce, and NuShala as portfolio firms.

'Reimagining BPO industry'

Nurix AI is focused on developing custom AI agents with human-like voice and reasoning capabilities that fit within the existing enterprise workflow, depending on their operational needs.

"We will build custom AI agents for any function within an organisation where it can significantly speed up the work," Bansal said.

The company's first offering is AI-driven customer experience solutions with human oversight, aimed at call centre and outbound sales use cases. Nurix AI states that this product allows for more personalised, scalable customer interactions while maintaining the reliability and empathy that only humans can provide.

The startup's solutions will integrate all popular large language models, including OpenAI's GPT, Google's Gemini, Meta's Llama, and Anthropic's Claude as well as several smaller models that are relatively unknown, Bansal said.

"Initially, think of it as a services approach with an objective to deliver a solution. It will eventually evolve into a platform" he said.

Nurix AI is also building its own voice AI models in order to provide deep customisation to its customers, including support for regional languages for the Indian market.

"In six months, we will be in a position where you can talk to our AI-generated voice and you will not be able to tell the difference whether you are talking to a human or an AI agent. We will be able to have a proper conversation with you, understand the issue for which you're calling and find your resolution. That will be a massive inflection point for the BPO industry" he said.

Nurix AI Founding Team

Apart from Bansal, Nurix AI's founding team comprises Anantika Jain, Abhimanyu Shekhawat, Abhishek Asawa, and Anuj Modi.

Jain and Asawa come from a consulting background with stints at Kearney and McKinsey, respectively. Both have also worked at Tata Digital. Shekhawat has worked at Flipkart and Coinbase, besides a stint at EY. Modi has earlier worked at Myntra, Cure.Fit (now Cultfit), and SugarFit.

Bansal said the team has been working on this idea for the past six to nine months. In the past three months, the company has conducted five pilots with customers, demonstrating a 30-50 percent improvement in efficiency among others. Pilot customers include new-age fintech players, companies in the investment and payments space, and retail firms, Jain said without disclosing any specific names.

Nurix AI is now planning a full-fledged launch in the coming months. "This OND (October-November-December) quarter will be our first revenue-generating quarter," Bansal said.

Bansal will be involved in Nurix AI's day-to-day operations as chief executive, he said. "That is the Meraki Labs model. The initial involvement is fairly hands-on until we find a good CEO. This may also happen at Nurix AI. It may take a year or more, but until then, I will be involved in an operational capacity," he said.

Where Will the Money Go?

Nurix AI stated that it plans to use the funds raised to expand its technological foundation and scale its operations to cater to the increasing demand for customised AI solutions in Asia and Northern America. This includes improving its research and development capabilities and establishing a prominent market presence with a focus on building long-term partnerships with AI hardware and product companies.

"Nurix AI is addressing the critical challenges enterprises face in adopting AI at scale—namely, the integration of customized AI solutions with existing workflows, while balancing the precision of AI with the empathy of human oversight. India has become the world’s services destination, and with the advent of GenAI, that trend is set to accelerate even further," said Subrata Mitra, partner at Accel.

The venture capital firm has previously backed Bansal's earlier ventures, including fashion e-commerce platform Myntra, which was later acquired by e-commerce major Flipkart, and health and fitness startup Curefit.

Deep Nishar, partner at General Catalyst, said: "AI is fundamentally reshaping enterprises, and the shift is happening rapidly. Enterprises need partners who deliver production-grade, customised AI solutions that are tailored to their unique needs."

Nurix AI's focus on practical, scalable implementations, combined with its team's track record, will make the startup an "essential partner for companies looking to harness the true power of AI", he said.

Earlier this year, General Catalyst also incubated Crescendo, an AI-first contact center business. Anand Chandrasekaran, who previously led the firm's India investments, is serving as the founder and president of the firm.

The company also counts Alorica founder Andy Lee, former Zendesk executive Matt Price and former Genesys CTO Slava Zhakov as co-founders.

Overall, the custom AI agent landscape comprises tech giants such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and OpenAI as well as domestic players such as Haptik, Yellow.ai, and Gupshup.