Andrew Ng's fund makes first India investment with AI healthcare firm Jivi

(Reuters) - Computer scientist Andrew Ng-led AI Fund said on Tuesday it has invested in an Indian artificial intelligence healthcare firm named Jivi, the fund’s first such investment in the country.

India’s booming AI segment is expected to grow more than double to up to $22 billion by 2027, according to a Nasscom-BCG report released earlier this year. The products and startups category is expected to account for 15-17% of the market, tying for the highest share along with financial services.

Jivi, based out of the northern Indian city of Gurugram, uses AI to suggest potential diagnoses and treatments, generate health reports and perform administrative tasks, the fund said in a statement.

The fund did not specify how much it invested in the startup or how much stake it bought.

Backed by Sequoia Capital and Softbank Group, AI Fund has also invested in podcast-production platform Podcastle and investment-research application Octagon AI. 

Ng, managing general partner at AI Fund, joined Amazon’s board in April. Previously, he led AI projects at Alphabet’s Google and Chinese internet search engine Baidu before resigning from both. 

(Reporting by Varun Hebbalalu in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)