Mumbai, July 14 -- Mumbai: Venture capital (VC) firm Elevation Capital is launching its ninth fund, worth $500 million, to invest in early-stage companies, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI)-led opportunities, senior company officials said.

AI opportunities are only beginning to be unlocked, said Mukul Arora and Mridul Arora, partners at Elevation Capital, in an interview with Mint, disagreeing with the view that India is being left behind in the global AI race.

"We believe AI is unlocking expertise on top of the connectivity and payments infrastructure India has already built," said Mukul, adding that expertise remains severely undersupplied.

Elevation believes India will have a billion internet users, hundreds of...