Blackstone backs Neysa in up to $1.2B financing as India pushes to build domestic AI infrastructure

Neysaan Indian AI infrastructure startup, has received the backing of US private equity firm Blackstone in scaling up domestic computing capabilities, amid India’s efforts to build homegrown AI capabilities.

Blackstone and co-investors, including Teachers’ Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Asset and Nexus Venture Partners, have agreed to invest up to $600 million in primary equity capital in Neysa, giving Blackstone a majority stake, Blackstone and Neysa told TechCrunch. The Mumbai-headquartered startup also plans to raise another $600 million in debt financing as it expands GPU capacity, a sharp increase from the $50 million it had previously raised.

The deal comes as The demand for AI computing is increasing worldwidecreate supply constraints for specialized chips And data center capacity required to train and control large models. Newer AI-focused infrastructure providers – often also called ‘neo clouds’ – have emerged to bridge that gap by offering dedicated GPU capacity and faster deployment than traditional hyperscalers, especially for enterprises and AI labs with specific regulatory, latency or customization requirements.

Neysa operates in this emerging segment, positioning itself as a provider of custom, GPU-first infrastructure for enterprises, government agencies and AI developers in India, where demand for local computing power is still in its early but rapidly growing stages.

“A lot of customers want manual control, and a lot of them want 24/7 support with a 15-minute response and some of our solutions. And so those are the things that we offer that some hyperscalers don’t,” said Sharad Sanghi, co-founder and CEO of Neysa.

Ganesh Mani, senior managing director at Blackstone Private Equity, said his firm estimates currently have fewer than 60,000 GPUs deployed in India – and expects this number to increase nearly 30-fold to more than two million in the coming years.

That expansion is being driven by a combination of government demand, companies in regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare that need to keep data local, and AI developers building models in India, Mani told TechCrunch. Global AI labs, many of which count India among their largest user bases, are also increasingly looking to deploy computing capacity closer to users to reduce latency and meet data demands.

The investment also builds on Blackstone’s broader commitment to data centers and AI infrastructure worldwide. The company has previously supported large-scale data center platforms such as QTS and AirTrunk, as well as specialist AI infrastructure providers including CoreWeave in the US and Firmus in Australia.

Neysa develops and operates GPU-based AI infrastructure that enables enterprises, researchers and public sector customers to train, refine and deploy AI models locally. The startup currently has around 1,200 GPUs in use and plans to greatly scale that capacity, targeting deployments of more than 20,000 GPUs over time as customer demand increases.

“We see demand for us to more than triple our capacity next year,” Sanghi said. “Some of the conversations we’re having are at quite an advanced stage; if they continue, we could see it sooner rather than later. We could see it in the next nine months.”

Sanghi told TechCrunch that the majority of the new capital will be used to deploy large-scale GPU clusters, including compute, networking and storage, while a smaller portion will go towards research and development and building out Neysa’s software platforms for orchestration, observability and security.

Neysa aims to more than triple its revenue next year as demand for AI workloads increases, with ambitions to expand beyond India over time, Sanghi said. Founded in 2023, the startup employs 110 people across offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.