New Delhi, June 29: Clairva Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-domiciled AI data infrastructure company, has raised USD 500,000 from Venture Catalyst through its angel network as it builds licensed datasets from India, Southeast Asia and the wider Global South for AI foundation models, robotics companies and world-model developers.
The funding comes as AI companies move beyond text and image-based training data toward systems that need to understand physical environments, human behaviour and real-world movement. For foundation models, embodied AI, autonomous systems and robotics, high-quality data is becoming a critical input. Much of that data, however, remains difficult to source with clear rights, provenance and cultural context.
Clairva is focused on that gap. The company works with content owners, production houses, studios, archives, institutions and contributor networks to source, license and structure real-world data for AI training. Its early focus is on India, Southeast Asia and other Global South markets, where behaviour, languages, environments, gestures, workflows and objects are often underrepresented in large AI training datasets.
The company is developing proprietary technology and internal IP across the data pipeline, including licensed dataset ingestion, rights and provenance tracking, automated enrichment, metadata generation, action and object tagging, temporal segmentation, quality validation and dataset packaging. The objective is to convert raw data into structured training signals that can be commercially licensed and audited.
“AI models are now being asked to understand and act in the physical world. That requires data that reflects how the real world actually behaves, not just what is available on the open internet,” said Sunil Nair, Co-founder of Clairva. “Clairva is building trusted, licensed data infrastructure from regions that have been underrepresented in AI training, starting with India and Southeast Asia.”
The founding team brings experience across media, technology, content licensing, AI products, operations and emerging market distribution. Clairva is headquartered in Singapore and is building across India, Southeast Asia and international AI markets.
The USD 500,000 investment will be used to strengthen Clairva’s licensed data supply network, expand relationships with content owners and institutional partners, deepen its enrichment and validation capabilities, and support commercial engagement with global AI customers. The company is currently building a pipeline of licensed assets and bespoke dataset opportunities across India, Southeast Asia and other Global South markets.
“Clairva is addressing a critical gap in the AI ecosystem by building licensed, high-quality datasets from regions that have historically been underrepresented in model training,” said Rishabh Golchha , Managing Director at Venture Catalyst. “As AI systems evolve to understand real-world environments, access to diverse, rights-cleared data will become increasingly important. We believe Clairva is well-positioned to build foundational infrastructure in this space.”
Following this pre-seed funding, Clairva plans to raise a USD 5 million seed round in the second half of 2026. The round will be aimed at strategic and institutional investors focused on AI infrastructure, data supply, model training and emerging market technology. Proceeds are expected to support product development, AI tooling, data operations, commercial expansion and global customer acquisition.
“India and Southeast Asia are not peripheral markets for AI,” said Dushyant Verma, Co-founder Clairva. “They represent dense, complex, real-world environments. For AI labs building models that need to understand the physical world, that makes the region strategically important.”