Google and Accel have revealed that the majority of applicants to their India-focused AI accelerator were rejected for lacking substantive innovation, as investors increasingly move away from superficial “wrapper” startups built on existing models. Accel partner Prayank Swaroop indicated that roughly 70% of over 4,000 applications fell into this category and failed to reimagine workflows using AI.
The Atoms program, launched in November, will fund selected startups with up to $2 million alongside compute credits from Google. Jonathan Silber, co-founder of Google’s AI Futures Fund, stated that the chosen companies align with areas where AI is expected to deliver real-world impact, while also providing feedback to improve models developed by Google DeepMind.
The selected startups span scientific research, enterprise automation, voice AI, media generation, and industrial AI applications.
