Bangalore : Accel and Google’s AI Futures Fund (AIFF) today announced the five startups joining the 2026 Atoms AI Cohort. This partnership combines Accel’s deep history of supporting Indian founders with Google’s frontier AI infrastructure to help early-stage teams move from initial concept to global scale.
Selected from more than 4000 applications, each startup will receive a co-investment of up to $2 million, split equally between Accel and the Google AI Futures Fund, alongside up to $350,000 in compute credits spanning Google Cloud, Gemini, and Google DeepMind resources.
The 2026 Cohort spans five high impact verticals, showcasing both the breadth of AI innovation and India’s growing role in building globally scalable solutions. The cohort includes K-Dense, building an AI co-scientist to accelerate discovery in life sciences, physics, chemistry and beyond; Dodge.ai, bringing autonomous AI agents to modernise ERP systems; Persistence Labs, applying voice AI to transform large scale call centre operations; Zingroll, building AI native entertainment and streaming experiences for consumers; and LevelPlane, advancing industrial automation for precision led automotive and aerospace manufacturing. Together, the cohort reflects a clear shift toward sectors where AI can drive deep, structural transformation rather than incremental efficiency gains.
Prayank Swaroop and Shekhar Kirani, Partners at Accel, said, “Atoms has always been about backing founders at the earliest moment of possibility, when it’s just ambition and insight. We believe India’s most driven founders can compete and win on a global stage from day one and with Google alongside us, that conviction now comes with an unmatched launchpad. Chosen from over 4,000 applicants, this cohort — building across enterprise AI, voice automation, and industrial manufacturing — represents exactly the kind of bold, original thinking we back. We’re thrilled to be their partners on the zero-to-one journey.”
“We are entering a phase where AI is moving from a novelty to a core piece of industrial and scientific infrastructure,” said Jonathan Silber, Co-founder and Director of the Google AI Futures Fund. “By providing these five startups with early access to our most advanced models and compute power, we’re helping them solve hard problems faster and more responsibly.”
Atoms represents Accel’s ongoing commitment of backing India’s most innovative founders at the earliest stages of their journey. As the first partner to many of India’s most successful, category-defining companies – including Flipkart, Freshworks, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zetwerk, and Cure.fit, Accel leverages its deep network and experience to help pre-seed founders navigate the 0-to-1 journey.
Accel has backed over 45 companies through Accel Atoms and these startups have collectively raised over $300 million in follow-on funding in their journey of building category-defining businesses. Together, these initiatives represent a new era for early-stage innovation in India, where global capital and technology converge to accelerate founder journeys.
For more information on the Atoms program and future cohorts visit https://atoms.accel.com/
The 2026 Atoms AI Cohort
K-Dense | Timothy Kassis, Dave Zang
K-Dense is building an AI Co-Scientist designed to accelerate scientific discovery by helping researchers reason through complex problems in life sciences, physics, and chemistry. The company is developing open-source tools that are already gaining strong adoption within the global research community | https://www.k-dense.ai/
Dodge.ai | Rebhav Bharadwaj, Aditya Thakur
A San Francisco-based startup founded in 2025, building autonomous AI agents to revolutionize enterprise ERP management for SAP environments | https://getdodge.ai/
Persistence Labs | Utkarsh Marwaha
Building Voice AI solutions for call centres, targeting the large and underserved market for intelligent, real-time voice automation in customer care.
Zingroll | Harshit Yadav
A San Francisco-based AI entertainment startup building a free streaming platform for high-quality AI-generated movies and shows — Netflix-level quality with YouTube-like accessibility. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz
Level Plane | Vineeth Rajagopal, Suri Chawla
Automating end-to-end manufacturing processes in the auto and aerospace industries, bringing AI-driven precision and efficiency to industrial production pipelines
