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Indian tech tycoon bets $30M of his own money to build AI alternative to Microsoft Office
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Indian serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia is betting $30 million of his own money that workplace software must be rebuilt from the ground up for the AI era. His new venture, Neo, aims to challenge Microsoft Office and other enterprise suites by integrating project management, documents, file storage, and AI into a single platform. Turakhia argues that existing products cannot simply add chatbots — they need a complete redesign. The 46-year-old founder has a track record of bootstrapping companies like Directi and Zeta before seeking outside investors, and he is doing the same with Neo.
Turakhia told TechCrunch he believes AI represents a technology shift significant enough to justify such a large personal investment. 'If you want to build an iPhone, you can’t take the parts of a Nokia and somehow convert it into an iPhone,' he said. Neo was launched internally in April 2024 and is designed to be model-agnostic, allowing enterprises to switch between AI providers rather than being locked into one vendor. The goal is to make AI an active participant in daily work, not just a separate assistant.
The enterprise AI space is highly competitive, with Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce embedding AI across their software, while startups like Notion and Superhuman race to redefine workplace workflows. Despite this, Turakhia argues that enterprise software is not a winner-takes-all market. 'Even if we end up with 2% to 5% market share, that’s larger than anything I’ve built so far,' he said.
Neo has been in internal use across Turakhia’s companies, including fintech firm Zeta, for several months. The company plans to start rolling out the platform to mid-sized businesses in the coming months, initially targeting knowledge workers in technology, consulting, and professional services. Turakhia noted that Neo’s initial platform was built in just three months using AI extensively in development — work that he estimates would have taken over a year with a larger pre-AI engineering team.
The Bengaluru-based startup currently employs about 45 people, including 18 engineers. Turakhia expects the team to grow to around 100 employees by the end of the year, with most new hires focused on AI and software engineering. He is not alone in self-funding AI ventures; investor Chamath Palihapitiya recently launched enterprise AI coding startup 8090 with his own capital before raising $135 million.
As Neo prepares for its public rollout, the question remains whether a bootstrapped challenger can carve out a significant share of the enterprise market dominated by tech giants. Turakhia is betting that the AI-driven redesign gives Neo a structural advantage over incumbents. If successful, Neo could redefine how businesses integrate AI into their daily operations, but it faces an uphill battle against well-funded competitors.
