Azim Premji’s Firm Invests in AI to Support $10 Billion Fund

PremjiInvest, the largest Indian family office managing over $10 billion for software tycoon Azim Premji, has been developing AI tools for the past three years. The company is planning to invest more money into artificial intelligence companies while fine-tuning its proprietary AI investment tools. According to TK Kurien, the managing partner and chief investment officer, the company has seen “exponential returns” and is now working on an AI quant model for its public market bets.

PremjiInvest was among the first large Indian asset managers to utilize AI tools in the private equity space. The company has hired 14 AI engineers and is now able to use AI to analyze over 10,000 companies globally on 600 parameters to identify investment opportunities in emerging technologies and trends. Additionally, they have started backing firms venturing into the nascent technology space.

Mr. Kurien also intends to allow open-source developers to access some of its AI tools. The company’s investment strategy focuses on technology and financial services as the top sectors. In India, the other two sectors in which the firm invests are consumer and health care, while investments in the US are focused on health care and technology sectors.

Mr. Premji established the family office in 2006 as a perpetual investment vehicle, and Mr. Kurien, who spent over 16 years at Wipro, is now scouting for investment targets in the US with the latest technologies that can be brought to India. PremjiInvest’s 120-member team oversees investments across its Menlo Park, California, and Bengaluru, India offices. The firm has seen a fourfold surge in assets under management in the last eight years and returns about 5% of its capital to Mr. Premji’s philanthropic foundation every year, without an exit time frame.

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