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AI startup Emergent has raised $130 million in a fresh funding round, pushing its valuation past the $1 billion mark.
That makes it one of the few Indian AI startups to join the unicorn club.
The funding round was led by private equity firm Creaegis, with participation from MNI Ventures-Claypond, Sentinel Global, and existing investors including Khosla Ventures, SoftBank's Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed, and Y Combinator.
So, what does Emergent actually do?
Instead of hiring a large engineering team, businesses can use Emergent's platform to build applications with the help of AI. It's aimed primarily at small and medium-sized businesses that want to create software quickly without writing endless lines of code.
The company says users have already built more than 12 million AI applications on its platform.
Background: Emergent was founded just over a year ago, in June 2025, by twin brothers Mukund Jha and Madhav Jha. If Madhav's name sounds familiar, that's because this isn't his first startup.
He previously co-founded Dunzo, once one of India's biggest quick-delivery names. Reliance backed it heavily, but the company eventually shut down in 2025.
By the numbers: Emergent says it has crossed an annual revenue run rate of $120 million, with revenue growing 70% in just the last four months. It also claims to have over 200,000 paying customers.
Around one-third of its revenue comes from North America, another third from Europe, while India contributes only 8-9%.
The big picture: India is also climbing the global AI rankings.
Stanford University's 2025 Global AI Vibrancy Index ranks the country third, behind only the United States and China, thanks to rapid progress in AI research, talent, and economic activity.
