BENGALURU: Private cloud computing startup Kluisz has rebranded to Nava and raised $21.7 million, or approximately ₹180 crore, in a Series A funding round led by Greenoaks Capital, as investors bet on rising demand for artificial-intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure. Existing investors RTP Global and Unicorn India Ventures also participated.
“Our larger ambitions entails now building a full stack new cloud platform,” said Abhinav Sinha, co-founder and chief executive at Nava (formerly Kluisz.ai), in an interview with Mint. “We are now going to build AI data centres and GPU compute.”
The fundraising and rebranding mark a broader pivot for the company, from offering private cloud services for enterprises to positioning itself as a “neocloud” platform that provides GPU-based infrastructure for artificial intelligence workloads.
A crop of such providers is emerging in India as demand for AI computing capacity rises. Companies such as Nava, Neevcloud, NxtGen, E2E Networks and data-centre provider Yotta Data Services are competing for business in what remains a relatively new segment. They also face competition from global players such as Nasdaq-listed CoreWeave and Lambda.
The round marks the startup’s second capital raise, coming just eight months after its $9.6 million seed round in July last year, which the company said was the largest seed round for an AI company at the time.
Neocloud platforms typically provide GPU-as-a-service infrastructure designed for artificial intelligence inference, machine learning and other compute-intensive workloads.
Nava’s fundraising also reflects how venture capital investors in India are approaching the AI opportunity. While AI applications and wrappers drew significant investor interest last year, investors are increasingly looking for defensible business models and intellectual property that are less vulnerable to changes from foundation-model providers such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
As a result, venture capital firms have become more selective about the companies they back. Those with stronger moats, however, are still able to raise larger cheques even at early stages.
Capital allocation
Nava plans to deploy the fresh capital across three broad areas. Part of the funding will go in expanding the company’s platform, which was earlier geared toward private cloud computing for enterprises.
Another priority is hiring, particularly in data-centre design, GPU engineering and go-to-market operations. When the company operated as Kluisz, Sinha said it focused less on go-to-market efforts and more on building the product.
“Now is the time that we're setting up our GTM teams not just here, but also for the Southeast Asia market,” he said.
The funding will also support the rollout of GPU clusters across India, Singapore and other Southeast Asian markets. This marks a shift from the company’s earlier focus on India and West Asia, fa pivot Sinha said was partly driven by the war in the region.
"If you look at India and Southeast Asia, they are in slightly different but still similar stages where AI compute capacity still has a lot to see from a growth perspective," said Sinha. The US market remains off the near-term roadmap.
On the customer front, Nava has broadened its scope as well. Earlier, the company focused largely on the banking, financial services and insurance sector. As a neocloud platform, it is now targeting a wider set of customers, including enterprises experimenting with AI and AI-native companies building applications.
The company has begun onboarding customers. It had initially targeted closing its first set of customers by late 2025 or January 2026.
"We have more than 12 customers that are under pilot, proof of concept project, sand about four customers that are already paying us," said Sinha. He declined to disclose the company’s current annual recurring revenue.