Blackstone invests $1.2B in Neysa as India scales GPU capacity to power domestic AI capabilities

Blackstone backs Neysa in up to $1.2B financing as India pushes to build domestic AI infrastructure | TechCrunch

Neysa, an Indian AI infrastructure startup, has secured backing from U.S. private equity firm Blackstone as it scales domestic compute capacity amid India's push to build homegrown AI capabilities. Blackstone and co-investors, including Teachers' Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Assets, and Nexus Venture Partners, have agreed to invest up to $600 million of primary equity in Neysa, giving Blackstone a majority stake, Blackstone and Neysa told TechCrunch. The Mumbai-headquartered startup also plans to raise an additional $600 million in debt financing as it expands GPU capacity, a sharp increase from the $50 million it had raised previously. The deal comes as demand for AI computing surges globally, creating supply constraints for specialized chips and data center capacity needed to train and run large models. Newer AI-focused infrastructure providers -- often referred to as "neo-clouds" -- have emerged to bridge that gap by offering dedicated GPU capacity and faster deployment than traditional hyperscalers, particularly for enterprises and AI labs with specific regulatory, latency, or customisation requirements. Neysa operates in this emerging segment, positioning itself as a provider of customized, GPU-first infrastructure for enterprises, government agencies, and AI developers in India, where demand for local compute is still at an early but rapidly expanding stage. "A lot of customers want hand-holding, and a lot of them want round-the-clock support with a 15-minute response and a couple of our resolutions. And so those are the kinds of things that we provide that some of the hyperscalers don't," said Neysa co-founder and CEO Sharad Sanghi. Ganesh Mani, a senior managing director at Blackstone Private Equity, said his firm estimates that India currently has fewer than 60,000 GPUs deployed -- and it expects the figure to scale up nearly 30 times to more than two million in the coming years. That expansion is being driven by a combination of government demand, enterprises in regulated sectors such as financial services and healthcare that need to keep data local, and AI developers building models within India, Mani told TechCrunch. Global AI labs, many of which count India among their largest user bases, are also increasingly looking to deploy computing capacity closer to users to reduce latency and meet data requirements. The investment also builds on Blackstone's broader push into data center and AI infrastructure globally. The firm has previously backed large-scale data centre platforms such as QTS and AirTrunk, as well as specialized AI infrastructure providers including CoreWeave in the U.S. and Firmus in Australia. Neysa develops and operates GPU-based AI infrastructure that enables enterprises, researchers, and public sector clients to train, fine-tune, and deploy AI models locally. The startup currently has about 1,200 GPUs live and plans to sharply scale that capacity, targeting deployments of more than 20,000 GPUs over time as customer demand accelerates. "We are seeing a demand that we are going to more than triple our capacity next year," Sanghi said. "Some of the conversations we are having are at a fairly advanced stage; if they go through, then we could see it sooner rather than later. We could see in the next nine months." Sanghi told TechCrunch that the bulk of the new capital will be used to deploy large-scale GPU clusters, including compute, networking and storage, while a smaller portion will go toward research and development and building out Neysa's software platforms for orchestration, observability, and security. Neysa aims to more than triple its revenue next year as demand for AI workloads accelerates, with ambitions to expand beyond India over time, Sanghi said. Founded in 2023, the startup employs 110 people across offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai.

Blackstone leads $600 million raise in AI cloud Neysa at $1.4 billion enterprise value

Blackstone is leading a $1.2 billion investment in Neysa, marking what would be India's largest-ever funding round in the AI space. The round is split evenly between primary equity and debt, giving Blackstone a majority stake. US alternative asset manager Blackstone is leading a $1.2 billion (about Rs 10,867 crore) investment in cloud infrastructure startup Neysa in what would be the largest-ever funding round in India's AI space. The fundraise would be split equally between a primary equity round and debt, Blackstone and Neysa said in a joint-statement. People familiar with the transaction said Neysa secured an enterprise valuation of $1.4 billion. The investment would give Blackstone a majority stake in the Mumbai-based AI cloud company. ET first reported in January about Blackstone finalising the deal for Neysa. The funding round also saw participation from TVS Capital, 360 One Asset Management, and Neysa's existing backer Nexus Venture Partners. Other existing backers include Z47, Blume Ventures, and Japanese technology conglomerate NTT. Neysa is the second venture by Sharad Sanghi, who founded Netmagic, one of India's oldest data centre services firms. Launched in 2023 by Sanghi and former senior Netmagic executive Anindya Das, Neysa offers compute power and software tools to build, run, and manage artificial intelligence (AI) applications to businesses ranging from large enterprises to startups and even government clients. The company operates in the graphics processing units (GPU)-led cloud and AI infrastructure segment, offering enterprises compute capacity to deploy large-scale AI work. Its clientele spans segments including banks, healthcare providers, manufacturing firms, and media companies. It also services startups and digital-native businesses. Speaking to ET, Sanghi said the proceeds from Blackstone will help Neysa deploy more than 20,000 GPUs, while also giving it access to the firm's relationships and ecosystem to engage potential clients such as OpenAI and Anthropic, where Blackstone is an investor. Also Read: AI to move from pilots to production, see wider adoption in 2026: Neysa CEO "India will be one of our largest markets," said Sanghi. "It's the biggest consumer of AI, whether with OpenAI, Perplexity, or Anthropic. Given the tax holiday announced in the budget, we expect global frontier labs to set up inferencing clusters here." The FY27 budget introduced a tax holiday till 2047 for companies that provide cloud services globally using data centres located in India. Inferencing clusters are groups of GPUs configured to run trained AI models at scale, handling real-time queries, and predictions. They power the deployment layer, where users interact with AI systems. "That means we need not just introductions through Blackstone's relationships but also require supply chain resilience to ensure we can access GPUs quickly," said Sanghi. Neysa had also held talks with SoftBank and Lightspeed among others for raising capital by selling minority stakes. "We spoke to multiple players, but we were convinced Blackstone was the right partner," said Sanghi. Blackstone's senior managing director Ganesh Mani said the firm saw an opportunity to invest given the scale up potential in India's AI infrastructure space, adding that the country, which currently has 60,000 GPUs, is estimated to have over 2 million such processors over a short period of time. Blackstone currently owns data centres globally with a $130 billion portfolio, including the world's largest data centre platform QTS and Australia's AirTrunk, among the largest data centre platforms in the Asia Pacific. "Our primary objective is to scale this business significantly, and there's a strong organic path to achieve that," said Mani. "Where it makes sense to pursue bolt-on opportunities, we'll do that as well. We're backing Sharad to build the neocloud and GPU infrastructure space in India."