Peak XV Surge backs Companion Labs in building interactive, local‑language AI experiences.
Companion Labs, a consumer AI company building interactive, entertainment-led experiences for India’s vernacular and culturally diverse audiences, today announced it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Peak XV’s Surge, with participation from All in Capital, UntitledVC, DeVC and many angels.
The announcement follows Companion Labs’ participation at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi last week, where the company was featured at the summit’s flagship Impact AI PitchFest, a platform spotlighting high-potential early-stage AI startups. Companion Labs was among a select group of companies backed by Peak XV at the event, highlighting growing investor conviction in founders building AI-native products designed specifically for India’s next wave of internet users.
Companion Labs operates at the intersection of AI and entertainment, creating immersive, character-driven experiences that allow users to explore alternate lives, careers, and aspirations through AI-powered narratives. Rather than positioning AI primarily as a productivity tool, the company treats AI as a creative medium, enabling people to “live” parallel lives in richly contextual worlds shaped by language, culture, and personal ambition.
The company is building from the ground up for India, with experiences designed to reflect the linguistic, cultural, and social nuances of Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 audiences. Companion Labs is focused on vernacular languages including Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, and Bengali, targeting a young, aspirational, and digitally native population for whom entertainment has historically driven the fastest adoption of new technology.
This focus aligns with a broader shift highlighted at the India AI Impact Summit, where founders and investors pointed to consumer-facing, population-scale AI products built in local languages as a key driver of India’s AI opportunity.
Companion Labs was founded by Akshay Jhanwar and Ajit Pol, who bring complementary experience across consumer internet, gaming, and entertainment. Ajit previously held roles at Flipkart, Leap, and in gaming, while Akshay spent over four years at Cred. The founding insight emerged from their early experimentation with global AI character platforms, which they found were largely Western in tone and context, limiting their resonance with Indian users.
“India’s next wave of AI adoption will be driven by consumer experiences that feel native to our languages, cultures, and aspirations,” said Akshay Jhanwar, Co-founder, Companion Labs. “We are building AI as a new form of entertainment, where people can explore alternate paths and identities in ways that feel deeply personal and rooted in their own context.”
Ajit Pol, Co-founder, Companion Labs, added, “Entertainment has always been the gateway to mass technology adoption in India. With AI, storytelling becomes interactive and personalised at scale. Our ambition is to build category-defining consumer AI experiences from India, for India.”
Companion Labs will use the funding to accelerate product development, invest in AI capabilities, and continue refining its product as it works toward product-market fit. Over the long term, the company aims to define a new category of AI-native entertainment built specifically for India’s vernacular internet users.
About Companion Labs
Companion Labs is a consumer AI company building interactive, entertainment-led experiences tailored for India’s vernacular and culturally diverse audiences. Founded by Akshay Jhanwar and Ajit Pol, the company uses AI-powered characters and narratives to let users explore alternate lives, careers, and aspirations in deeply local contexts. Built from India for India, Companion Labs reflects a broader shift toward consumer AI experiences that prioritise language, culture, and storytelling over generic utility.