Jaipur | Business Remedies | April 28,2025 | Devnagri is an AI-powered translation platform co-founded by Nakul Kundra and Himanshu Sharma, born out of a shared vision to bridge India’s immense linguistic diversity. Recognizing the complexity of a country with over 1,200 dialects and 22 official languages, the founders realized that true digital inclusivity could only be achieved by making content accessible in native languages. They set out to create a solution that married cutting-edge artificial intelligence with human expertise, leading to the birth of Devnagri, a platform designed to facilitate seamless, accurate, and culturally sensitive translations.
The early journey of Devnagri was fueled by the belief that communication is for the receiver. Kundra and Sharma understood that for businesses to truly connect with their audiences, content needed to resonate on a personal level. With this philosophy, they combined neural machine translation, built on the MarianNMT framework, with reinforcement learning from human feedback. Their approach was further strengthened by a vibrant community of over 5,000 native translators, aptly named ‘Kutumbh,’ who ensured the contextual accuracy and cultural relevance of every translation. This hybrid model not only made translations swift but also deeply meaningful for the diverse Indian audience.
Their innovation caught the public eye when Devnagri appeared on the first season of Shark Tank India. During their pitch, they demonstrated their translation engine’s ability to achieve over 85% contextual accuracy and introduced “Pratibimb,” India’s first image-to-language translation app. Inviting Lenskart CEO Peyush Bansal to test the app live, they showcased how users could translate visual content into their preferred languages instantly. Although they ultimately chose to decline investment offers to maintain their independent vision, the national exposure catapulted Devnagri into the spotlight and affirmed the relevance of their mission.
As the platform evolved, Devnagri expanded its services to cater to key sectors such as e-commerce, education, media, and finance. They introduced solutions like “Devnagri on the Air” (DOTA), a JavaScript plugin enabling real-time website translations, and a transliteration API capable of accurately converting proper nouns into Indian languages. Their client list grew to include prestigious names like PolicyBazaar, Zomato, Swiggy, PhonePe, Myntra, Snapdeal, and even international bodies like the United Nations. Processing up to one million words daily, Devnagri became a crucial partner for businesses aiming to penetrate Tier II and Tier III markets, where regional languages dominate internet consumption.
With the increasing demand for hyper-local communication, Devnagri raised $600,000 in a funding round led by Venture Catalyst and Inflection Point Ventures. The investment was directed towards scaling operations, advancing technology, enhancing infrastructure, and intensifying marketing efforts. Mitesh Shah of Inflection Point Ventures emphasized the critical nature of Devnagri’s work, noting that in a country where more than 700 languages are spoken, achieving accuracy, context, and cultural nuance is not just challenging but vital for effective communication and business growth.
Underpinning Devnagri’s continued innovation is their strategic expansion into the realms of GenAI and Statistical Language Models (SLMs), enabling businesses to personalize content at scale. Their cutting-edge technology now empowers companies to create private cloud infrastructures, allowing enterprises and government bodies to maintain ownership of their content while continuously training Large Language Models with user interactions. Nakul Kundra articulated this vision passionately, stressing that privatization of business communication is essential in a world where customer connection hinges on speaking the right language in the right way.
The impact of Devnagri’s work has been recognized globally, earning accolades like the TieCon Award 2024 in San Francisco, the Graham Bell Award 2023, and recognition from NASSCOM as India’s Emerging NLP Startup. Their work was also celebrated in a special edition of Shark Tank India and highlighted during major industry events like the Assocham Fintech Festival India. With a robust BLEU score performance in Indian languages, Devnagri has solidified its place as a leader in the Indian language technology space.
Looking ahead, the opportunity for Devnagri is immense, with the global language services market projected to reach $100 billion by 2030, and India’s share growing rapidly at a CAGR of 6.7%. As content-rich industries continue to expand, the need for hyper-localized communication will only deepen, creating new sub-industries and reshaping how businesses interact with their audiences. Devnagri, with its unique blend of technology and human insight, stands at the forefront of this transformation, committed to making digital content truly accessible for every Indian, one translation at a time.
Written & Edited By:
Rajshree Upadhyaya
