Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal raises $30 million for new AI startup

Indian-origin Parag Agrawal, who formerly held the position of Twitter’s CEO before Elon Musk’s takeover, is now venturing into artificial intelligence, capitalizing on the growing interest in technologies like ChatGPT. According to The Information, the ex-Twitter CEO has recently secured approximately $30 million (Rs 2,493,428,880) in funding for his new artificial intelligence (AI) startup.

Khosla Ventures, an early supporter of OpenAI, spearheaded the funding round for Mr Agrawal’s AI initiative. Two other prominent venture firms, Index Ventures and First Round Capital have also joined the deal.

Though the venture’s name and product details have not been revealed, people familiar with the deal said that the startup will build software for developers of large language models, exemplified by platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Mr Agrawal’s foray into the world of AI signifies a growing trend of tech leaders leveraging this burgeoning trend.

Notably, Elon Musk fired Mr Agrawal shortly after becoming the new boss of X, formerly Twitter, which he bought for $44 billion in 2022.

Mr Agrawal was appointed as the first Indian-origin CEO of Twitter in November 2021. The IIT Bombay and Stanford alumnus joined the company in 2011 when there were fewer than 1,000 employees. He became the company’s chief technology officer (CTO) in 2017. The 39-year-old was one of the youngest to reach the helm of a big technology company.

Notably, months before completing the buyout of Twitter, Elon Musk met Parag Agarwal over dinner but found one key leadership quality missing in him.

Listen to the latest songs, only on JioSaavn.com
This was revealed by Walter Isaacson, a writer who spent three years trailing the Tesla CEO for his biography ‘Elon Musk’. “He’s a nice guy,” said Mr Musk but one of his maxims is that managers should not aim to be liked, Mr Isaacson wrote, as per the WSJ report.

Post a comment
“What Twitter needs is a fire-breathing dragon and Parag is not that,” Mr Musk said after the meeting. NDTV