AWS, Accel launches ML Elevate 2023 to support generative AI startups in the country

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and venture capital firm Accel have announced the launch of ML Elevate 2023, a six-week accelerator program aimed at empowering startups that are building generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

According to the company's statement, The new accelerator program will provide impactful AI models and tools, business and technical mentorship, curated resources, the AWS Activate program, and up to US$200,000 in AWS Credits to startups.

Apart from this, It would also provide peer support from a community of leading AI and ML startup founders and the opportunity to scale production-ready generative AI applications on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart.

According to a recent study by the NASSCOM called Generative AI startup landscape in India -- A 2023 perspective, generative AI startups in the country have raised over US$475 million in private investments from January 2021 to May 2023.

Talking about eligibility, The startups that have already developed a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and intend to seek funding in the next 12-18 months are eligible to apply and the selected ones will undergo live virtual masterclasses, including fireside chats and panel discussions by investors, industry leaders, and AWS experts.

The panel of speakers includes Tom Mason, Chief Technology Officer, Stability AI; Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Asia-South, NVIDIA Graphics Pvt Ltd; Poonacha Kongetira, SVP Engineering at SambaNova (US); Anupam Datta, Co-founder, President and Chief Scientist, TruEra (USA); Apurva Kalia, Senior Researcher, Tufts University (USA), and others.

The cohort will also have a fundraising opportunity through a dedicated Demo Week to pitch leading VC funds, angel investors, and industry leaders, the company said.

Generative AI offers an unprecedented opportunity to revolutionise and transform businesses globally. Through ML Elevate, our aim is to support generative AI startups to develop industry-focused solutions and innovate to drive the digital economy. We are excited to collaborate with Accel to invite applications from builders with big ideas and support the growing community of generative AI startups in India," said Vaishali Kasture, Director of AWS India and South Asia at Amazon Web Services India.

Generative AI heralds a new era of innovation and productivity in all spheres of life. We are witnessing an ever-increasing pace of innovation in LLMs, LLMOps, ML models and GPU compute. ML Elevate offers a robust opportunity to entrepreneurs and startups building in the generative AI space. It was great to collaborate on ML Elevate last year, and we are looking forward to working with AWS and selected startups this year too," said Prayank Swaroop, Partner, Accel.

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