AI startup RapidCanvas raises $29 million led by Vertex Ventures
RapidCanvas, a managed artificial intelligence execution company, has raised $29 million in a Series B funding round led by Vertex Ventures SEA & India, the startup announced on Friday.
Hitachi Ventures joined the company's cap table, while existing investors Accel, Peak XV Partners, Valley Capital Partners and Titanium Ventures also participated in the round. With the latest investment, RapidCanvas has raised a total of $52.5 million.
The company will use the funding to expand its go-to-market teams and network of private equity and advisory partners. It also plans to grow its field AI engineering team across India, the US and Brazil.
"AI can be the great equalizer, but so far its biggest wins have gone to the Fortune 100. We want to give every enterprise the same opportunity," said Rahul Pangam, co-founder and chief executive of RapidCanvas, in a statement. “Vibe coding has made it easy to start building with AI. Getting AI into production reliably and safely still remains the biggest gap.”
Global spending on direct AI services will reach $516 billion by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of 14.7% over five years, according to a Gartner note published in January. RapidCanvas' competitors Databricks, Altair, and Quantexa, among others.
AI execution gap
The funding comes as venture capital firms increasingly back companies seeking to disrupt traditional services markets, which have long been dominated by a handful of large players.
RapidCanvas is targeting businesses with annual revenues ranging from $100 million to $10 billion. Many of these companies have already carved out mandates for AI implementation, creating an opportunity for firms that can help turn experimentation into practical business applications.
In India, large enterprises that have traditionally been slow to adopt new technologies from startup vendors have begun moving faster, as interest in deploying AI grows.
“Most enterprises are still searching for real returns on their AI spend. RapidCanvas delivers them by pairing an AI platform that compounds with every deployment and forward-deployed engineers who own the outcome end to end,” said Piyush Kharbanda, general partner at Vertex Ventures SEA & India, in a statement.
RapidCanvas' estimated revenue as of December 2025 stood at $35.8 million, according to Tracxn.
AI-led disruption of the services sector has become a broader area of interest for India's venture investors. Funds such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Lightspeed, Stellaris Venture Partners, Accel and TVS Capital Funds have been actively investing in companies looking to challenge traditional services models. Last year, Bessemer unveiled a roadmap outlining how it expects AI to disrupt the IT services sector.
RapidCanvas pairs its AI platform with field AI engineers to deliver custom AI solutions. AI engineers learn each customer's business processes, design and build custom AI applications, and stay accountable for the applications' outcomes after delivery.