Bhavin Turakhia Challenges Microsoft with Neo, His $30 Million AI

Bhavin Turakhia Bets Big on Neo, an AI Alternative to Microsoft Office

Indian entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia has decided to invest $30 million of his own fortune into a new venture called Neo. This ambitious project aims to provide an alternative to traditional desktop software, such as Microsoft Office, by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) intrinsically from the design stage. According to Turakhia, current software, designed before the AI era, cannot simply be enhanced with chatbots; they require a complete overhaul.

At 46 years old, Turakhia is no stranger to bold tech bets. He co-founded several successful companies, including Directi, Radix, Titan, and Zeta, a banking software company. These businesses were primarily funded by his own resources before attracting external investors. With Neo, he is taking the same approach.

Turakhia explained to TechCrunch that he firmly believes AI represents a technological advancement significant enough to warrant rebuilding desktop software from the ground up. He illustrated his point by stating, “If you want to build an iPhone, you can’t take the parts of a Nokia and convert them into an iPhone.”

An Integrated Platform for Enterprise Work

Launched internally in April, Neo presents itself as an enterprise work platform that integrates project management, documents, file storage, and AI into a single product. Turakhia's goal is to make AI an active participant in daily work, rather than just a tool employees refer to occasionally.

Turakhia emphasizes that established companies often face structural obstacles when trying to add AI to products designed before generative AI. Neo, on the other hand, has been designed from the outset to incorporate AI and is model-agnostic, allowing companies to switch AI models without being tied to a single provider.

A Competitive and Expanding Market

Turakhia is not the only one seeing the potential of AI in enterprise software. Investor Chamath Palihapitiya has also launched an AI coding company, 8090, with his own funds before raising $135 million this week.

However, Turakhia's bet comes at a time when enterprise AI has become one of the most competitive sectors in technology. Giants like Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce are already integrating AI into their desktop software. Meanwhile, startups like Anthropic, OpenAI, Notion, and Superhuman are striving to redefine the use of AI in the daily workflow of businesses.

Turakhia is convinced that the enterprise software market has never been dominated by a single player. He believes that a small share of global enterprise AI spending could represent a significant business. “Even if we end up with 2% to 5% market share, that would be larger than anything I’ve built so far,” he stated.

Deployment and Future Prospects

In recent months, Neo has been tested internally within Turakhia's companies, including Zeta. The company plans to begin deploying the software to mid-sized businesses in the coming months, initially targeting knowledge workers in technology, consulting, and professional services sectors.

Turakhia revealed that the initial platform of Neo was developed in three months, thanks to intensive use of AI in the development process. He estimates that this work would have taken over a year with a much larger engineering team before the era of generative AI.

Based in Bangalore, the startup currently employs around 45 people, including 18 engineers. Turakhia told TechCrunch that he plans to increase the workforce to about 100 employees by the end of the year, with a particular focus on recruiting talent in AI and software engineering.