Serum Institute invests $30 million in Yotta Data Services
The Serum Institute of India has invested 250 crore rupees in Yotta Data Services, part of a 1,396 crore rupee funding round that valued the Hiranandani
Vaccine maker Serum Institute of India has invested 250 crore rupees, approximately $30 million, in Yotta Data Services. The investment was part of a 1,396 crore rupee fundraise in July that valued the data centre company at 37,000 crore rupees, or nearly $4 billion, according to company filings reviewed by Mint.
Non-banking financial firm Dovetail Financial Services invested 1,029 crore rupees, while Mauritius-based Asio Fund VCC invested 77.3 crore rupees. Yotta's CEO, Sunil Gupta, told Mint that Dovetail and Asio acted as proxies for more than 140 high net-worth individuals and family offices. He stated that Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute, made a direct investment.
"Domestic HNIs and families have invested through the domestic vehicle, Dovetail. International HNIs and families have invested through the Mauritius fund, Asio VCC," Gupta said. He added that both investment vehicles were arranged by ASK Investments.
Investment Terms and IPO Plans
Dovetail's investment came with a specific condition. Yotta agreed to pay 17% annual interest on the capital raised. A pre-investment note from EY India in December suggested this clause could allow investors to recover their investments at that rate between 33 and 36 months after the capital infusion.
Gupta claimed the clause was to "give investors comfort" that they would have a guaranteed return if a monetization event like an initial public offering did not occur. The company is aiming for a public listing by March 2027, by which time it hopes to have raised a total of $1.5 billion. Mint reported it could not independently confirm Gupta's claims about the family investors or the roles of Dovetail, Asio, and ASK.
The Data Centre Funding Landscape
The fundraise occurs amid major investments in India's data centre sector by large conglomerates. Yotta, founded in 2019, is an early mover and currently has 180 megawatts of active data centre capacity.
Several other homegrown data centre companies have recently secured significant funding, as shown in the table below.
| Company | Fundraise Amount | Valuation | Key Investors/Backers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yotta Data Services | 1,396 crore rupees ($150 million) | 37,000 crore rupees (~$4 billion) | Serum Institute of India, Dovetail Financial, Asio Fund VCC |
| Nxtra | $1 billion | Not specified | AlphaWave, Carlyle, Anchorage Capital (Bharti Airtel-backed) |
| CtrlS Datacenters | 4,000 crore rupees | $4.8 billion | Canada’s public pension fund |
Additionally, Tata Sons announced a $7-billion outlay for a 1 gigawatt data centre in October 2025. In February, Reliance Industries and Adani Enterprises announced a combined $210 billion in planned spending on artificial intelligence and data centres over the next decade. Chennai-based Sify Infinit Spaces is also seeking to raise $4 billion, according to a Mint report from 11 August.
Analyst Perspective on Sector Growth
Analysts believe industrial interest in data centres will continue rising. Kashyap Kompella, founder of RPA2AI Research, said the Yotta funding round establishes a private-market valuation benchmark ahead of a potential larger fundraise and initial public offering.
He said investor interest is driven by domestic cloud and AI demand, sovereign requirements, and the potential to serve global workloads from India. However, Kompella cautioned that demand might materialize slower than expected and that GPU-heavy infrastructure could become obsolete quickly. He concluded that financial returns would depend on how efficiently the data centres are built, contracted, and utilized.
