Indian serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia has committed $30 million of his own capital to launch Neo, an AI-native enterprise software platform designed to compete with Microsoft Office and Google Apps. The Bengaluru-based startup was launched internally in April 2026 and plans to begin rolling out to mid-sized businesses in the coming months.
Neo combines project management, documents, file storage, and AI into a single product. Turakhia, 46, argues that workplace software built before the generative AI era cannot be meaningfully upgraded by adding chatbots — it must be rebuilt entirely. “If you want to build an iPhone, you can’t take the parts of a Nokia and somehow convert it into an iPhone,” he told TechCrunch.
Turakhia has previously co-founded Directi, Radix, Titan, and banking software firm Zeta, typically self-funding ventures before bringing in outside investors. He is following the same approach with Neo. The platform is described as model-agnostic, meaning enterprises can switch between AI models rather than being locked into a single provider.
Neo’s initial platform was built in three months, with AI used extensively in development — work Turakhia estimates would have taken more than a year with a larger engineering team prior to generative AI. The software has been in internal use across his companies, including Zeta, for several months. The startup currently employs about 45 people, including 18 engineers, and expects to reach around 100 employees by year-end, with most new hires focused on AI and software engineering.
Neo’s initial target market is knowledge workers in technology, consulting, and professional services firms. Turakhia acknowledged the competitive landscape includes Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and startups such as Notion and Superhuman, but said enterprise software has historically not been 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.
Source: TechCrunch