On the evening of December 14 last year, as football legend Lionel Messi walked into Wankhede Stadium of Mumbai, to the thunderous roar of 30,000 fans, an advertisement flashed on the giant LED screen.
‘Puch AI’- just two words.
Seated in the VIP section of the stadium, Siddharth Bhatia, the co-founder and face of Puch AI, was seen chatting with popular Bollywood star Tiger Shroff.
Four days later, on December 18, 2025, The Times of India, the largest English daily printed a frontpage advertisement for its all India editions- a blank white full page with just two words on it- Puch AI.
The shock advertisements did work and people got curious about Puch AI (Ask AI in English)- an AI powered voice assistant application that works on WhatsApp messenger interface. A user needs to add Puch AI’s official number on Whatsapp for it to work as an AI tool like ChatGPT or Claude.
Puch AI, a startup founded in June 2025, from India’s silicon city Bengaluru, claimed that they have a vision to “democratize AI” and bring the technology to millions of Indians, in their indigenous languages, catering to their everyday problems.
A bootstrapped startup with ambitions and possibly decent funds for advertising.
That was the story of Puch AI. Until now.
Cut to March 22, 2026 Monday morning, Bhatia visited the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow and presented a proposal to enter a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UP government in order to bring AI parks, large scale data center infrastructure, AI Commons and set up an AI University in India’s most populous state.
Post the meeting, Bhatia claimed on social media and to reporters that the entire MoU budget would run into ₹25,000 crore (approximately $2.67 billion) and the same was reiterated by the UP CM official X handle.
Under the MoU, Puch AI was supposed to get global investments that will help the company set up large scale AI infrastructure, data centers, common R&D research centers and an AI university-all of this on their own.
It was here that questions started getting raised on Puch AI’s capabilities to deliver a project of this magnitude when they are a bootstrapped startup with no disclosed funding or revenue. Puch AI doesn’t have a foundation AI model of its own and is often informally referred to in the tech circles as “wrapper on Gemma.”
The issue soon snowballed into a major political controversy with former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav criticizing the ruling party in the state for having been misled by a startup with “inflated figures.”
MoU करने से पहले से AI से ही ‘पूछ’ के बारे में पूछ लिया होता।
अपने आस-पास के ऐसे ‘फ़ाइव परसेंटिया’ घूसखोर व ख़ुदगर्ज़ लोगों से बचना चाहिए जो आपकी अनभिज्ञता या अज्ञान का दुरुपयोग करते हैं। इससे आपकी AI (Artificial Image) मतलब ले-दे के बनाई गई ‘कृत्रिम छवि’ पर भी बहुत ख़राब…
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) March 25, 2026
After a community note was put on CM Yogi’s X post announcing the ₹25,000 crore MoU with Puch AI, the CM clarified that the MoU is non-binding in nature and the approval is subject to detailed evaluation of the proposal.
“Any prospective investor falling short of the above will automatically have their MoU terminated. UP remains committed to transparent, responsible and future focussed development,” said CM Yogi in a post on X.
An MoU by Invest UP is a preliminary step before detailed due diligence and project evaluation gets done.
The MoU with Puch AI is similarly an initiation of the process by Invest UP to explore potential in the AI sector.
MoUs are non-binding on the State Government. Any… https://t.co/f0sEL4hU9x
— Yogi Adityanath (@myogiadityanath) March 24, 2026
The UP government has now demanded from Puch AI’s co-founder Siddharth Bhatia to explain their roadmap with key filings including returns, financial documents to prove that they can deliver to the MoU.
In this article, we have attempted to trace the origins of Puch AI, its foundation, its co-founders’ venture TurboML and how the twain met.
Puch AI: No Company Trace, Just a Phone Number and a Website
Puch AI is a startup co-founded by Siddharth Bhatia and Arjit Jain- self-claimed technologists- who aim to “make artificial intelligence accessible to every Indian, regardless of the language they speak or their technical background.
Bhatia, who is an alumnus of National University of Singapore and BITS Pilani in India, is the face of Puch AI, the one lobbying on Television talk shows and getting photographed with the likes of Mukesh Ambani, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, IT Minister Piyush Goyal among others.
Founded in June 2025, the official LinkedIn page of Puch AI recognizes it as a startup with 9-11 employees, however co-founder Bhatia has insisted that they are not boot-strapped and are well funded. The startup doesn’t have a physical office and offers only a website for communication.
In a recent post on X, Bhatia denied sharing revenue and valuation details of Puch AI, claiming they are a private entity, and that details will be shared “when the time is right.”
Clarifying a few things, starting with the MoU.
Are you taking taxpayer money?
No. The MoU signed with the UP Government is structured as a public-private partnership. It does not involve any cost to the taxpayers of Uttar Pradesh. On the contrary, it brings investment into the…— Siddharth Bhatia (@siddharthb_) March 24, 2026
Puch AI is absent from the database of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA, India) as a registered entity. Similarly, the government databases of the United States, Singapore and Dubai have not shown any result with that brand or its heteronyms.
However, co-founders Bhatia and Jain have appeared as registered directors in both MCA and U.S. Delaware based government databases.
The duo had earlier in 2022 co-founded TurboML, a San Francisco based Machine Learning platform that designs AI tools for data scientists and software teams to deploy on their systems.
This is where it gets interesting.
TurboML Private Limited is an Indian LLC entity registered from a suburb flat in Delhi, and has an American shell company holding 99.9% equity under TurboML INC.
We have investigated annual filings and revenue trajectory of TurboML for the past three years along with its memorandum of association, annual director’s note and other crucial documents to find an interesting trail of sudden abandonment of TurboML and rise of Puch AI.
TurboML: A San Francisco Startup with Office out of Dwarka Flat
According to MCA filings, TurboML Private Limited is registered from a flat in Dwarka area of New Delhi, with Siddharth Bhatia and Arjit Jain as co-founders.
The company has shown their registered office address with a picture of a handwritten note-TurboML Private Limited- pasted outside what appears to be a residential flat.
Bhatia had registered himself as a student in his profession back in 2022 while registering the company.
The latest annual filings for the financial year 2024-25 show ₹5.2 crore as revenue (127% rise vs FY23-24) and profit of ₹51 Lakh (108% rise vs FY23-24) with ₹3.79 crore as employee benefit expenses. It has listed a total of 9 employees with two directors.
Launched in 2022, TurboML recorded an impressive ₹2.3 crore revenue from zero in just a year.
However the receivables are a cause of concern for TurboML as the Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) has jumped to 357 days in FY24-25 compared to 178 days in FY23-24 with receivables being ₹5.1 crore out of ₹5.2 crore revenue. These statistics usually imply that either TurboML clients are not paying or contracts have long term payment terms.
Filings also show that TurboML Private Limited raised ₹8.92 crore from Indian venture funds in 2023 while being 99.99% owned by a Delaware holding company. It has no US based investor as per records of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) database.
As per the official DIN of Bhatia and Jain, they own no other registered entity in India, except for TurboML.
A close examination of the memorandum of association of TurboML shows the object clause of the company, “to engage in the business of developing and operating an online platform for sale, marketing and distribution of various products including software and other items for personal and commercial use, designing, developing and maintaining all kinds of software, mobile applications and all other allied activities.”
With this broad definition, TurboML as a parent company can be used by the co-founders to launch their new product- Puch AI, as it would not require any clause based amendments.
Puch AI couldn’t be traced on paper by the database of three countries including India. It is currently a product, with a steady base of users and a co-founder who is promoting his product through indigenous AI branding.
Puch AI’s Peculiar Model of Advertisement
On the tech world side of social media, Puch AI is known for offering handsome salary packages to interns (₹ 1 lakh/month) and coders (₹10 lakh/month) on X and LinkedIn.
The company has also made offers like free Iphones and free ‘Tesla Truck’ for anyone who can convince Elon Musk to join the AI India movement- an obvious hook for their startup promotion.
Its co-founder Bhatia on X, had once offered Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, a whopping $50 billion to “purchase” Perplexity as well as Google. A daring tribute to his hero in AI, while identifying himself as “CEO of $50 Million company.”
Without any data on Puch AI, Bhatia’s commitment to bring ₹25,000 crore in his company’s MoU with the UP government sounds hollow and far fetched.
Puch AI: Should We Not Ask Questions?
It is entirely plausible that Puch AI is in its final stages of company registration with the MCA. Indian laws require compulsory declaration of commencement of Business- INC 20A within 180 days or six months. It’s been 9-10 months since Puch AI launched.
A lot of confusion will clear when TurboML files its latest annual returns for FY2025-26. We will know for sure whether Puch AI indeed runs as a separate entity or under the same company of Bhatia and Jain.
Now the UP government has put the onus on Puch AI to prove themselves capable enough to carry an MoU of this magnitude. While it is admirable to have grand scale ambitions of developing an indigenous AI ecosystem for India, the people of this country deserve to know more.
Merely stating that Puch AI being a private entity doesn’t shield the directors from accountability. ₹25,000 crore is a huge number, it accounts for a quarter of the budget the UP government spends on the education sector for its 240 million residents.
The ball is in Puch AI’s court to walk the talk and come up with a detailed blueprint for their MoU, else, it will be remembered as another shock advertisement. Puch AI appears to be a product of TurboML Private Limited, whose office is a residential flat in Dwarka.
We have asked Bhatia and Puch AI to respond with a set of questions pertaining to the MoU and TurboML. The article will be updated once we receive the answers.
Update: After public backlash, the UP government has cancelled the MoU with Puch AI on late night Thursday, almost five hours after this article first went live. Readers are advised to read the latest update on Puch AI controversy on AI FrontPage website.
Also Read: After Backlash and “Due Diligence”, UP Govt Cancels ₹25,000 Cr MoU with PuchAI
