16-year-old Pranjali Awasthi, owner of AI startup Delv.AI, raises ₹3.7 crore funding

Sixteen-year-old Indian girl Pranjali Awasthi, the owner of artificial intelligence (AI) startup Delv.AI has successfully secured a funding of around ₹3.7 crore, said a report by Indiatoday.in.

At a Miami Tech Week event, Pranjali revealed that Delv.AI was founded by her in January 2022, as per the report.

Influenced by her engineer father, who encouraged her to study computer science in schools, Pranjali started coding at an early age of seven.

According to Delv.AI’s LinkedIn profile, the AI startup boasts a team of up to 10 employees.

Delv.AI uses artificial intelligence to improve data extraction processes and eliminate data silos. 

According to her, Delv.AI's primary goal is to assist researchers in efficiently accessing specific information amidst the growing online content.

After relocation to Florida, United States at age 11, Pranjali got more opportunities  to get enrolled into computer science classes and competitive math programs.

At the age of 13, she joined an internship program at Florida International University research lab, where her entrepreneurial journey started.

Because of the COVID pandemic, her high school had gone virtual, so she was able to intern for about 20 hours a week.

During her internship, Pranjali studied machine learning projects. 

Further, she joined an AI startup accelerator in Miami, run by Lucy Guo and Dave Fontenot of Backend Capital.

According to the report, Pranjali said that Delv.AI's beta launch on Product Hunt saw exceptional success. 

Product Hunt is a tech platform that allows anyone to share their software for free. 

The AI startup secured investments from On Deck and Village Global. Currently, it is valued at $12 million.

At Delv.AI, Pranjali oversees coding, operations and also customer service.

Prioritizing her responsibilities and passion for her burgeoning company, she has postponed her college for now. But she has plans to pursue higher education in the future to acquire business skills required for her company.