Bhavin Turakhia, a serial entrepreneur from India, is betting $30 million of his own money on Neo, a startup designed from the ground up for the AI era. His premise: workplace software designed before AI can’t simply be upgraded with chatbots. It needs to be rebuilt.

Neo is competing directly with Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, and a growing field of AI-native alternatives. Turakhia’s argument is that legacy software was built for keyboard and mouse. AI-first products should start with language and reasoning as primary interfaces.

The AI Office Problem

Microsoft and Google are bolt-on AI features—Copilot or Gemini alongside existing spreadsheets and documents. But they can’t reimagine workflows because they’re constrained by decades of backward compatibility.

Neo starts fresh. Users might dictate ideas, and the software parses intent, creates outlines, drafts documents, and flags inconsistencies. No templates, no manual formatting, just natural language.

India’s Startup Moment

India attracted $7.2 billion in tech startup funding in H1 2026, up 12 percent year-over-year. AI startups Neysa and Sarvam achieved unicorn status in under three years. The ecosystem is producing founders willing to go head-to-head with Silicon Valley giants.

Turakhia’s personal bet signals confidence that AI-native tools can win if designed with ruthless simplicity.