New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki India Limited has onboarded five startups — MiniMines, Easework AI, Sarvam AI, Siftly and CodeMate AI — to co-create solutions across business operations, customer engagement and battery recycling, as the country’s largest carmaker sharpens its focus on startup-led innovation.
The selected companies are winners of the fifth cohort of the Maruti Suzuki Incubation Program, or MSIP. The programme is organised in partnership with NSRCEL, the Nadathur S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, IIM Bangalore’s incubation hub for entrepreneurship and startup support.
Mr. Hisashi Takeuchi, Managing Director & CEO, Maruti Suzuki India Limited said, “At Maruti Suzuki, we have been actively working with startups to co-create innovative and practical solutions to address real business challenges. We are delighted to collaborate with five more startups. One of these startups, MiniMines, will support us in safely recycling end-of-life batteries, while the other four startups will help improve customer engagement and drive efficiency across our business operations.”
The collaboration covers a mix of sustainability, artificial intelligence and business automation — a combination that suggests the modern car business now needs as much coding muscle as mechanical engineering.
MiniMines will work on environment-friendly recycling of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries and extraction of precious materials. The area is gaining importance as electric mobility expands and automakers look at safer, cleaner ways to manage batteries after their useful life.
Easework AI will focus on end-to-end workflow automation of procurement processes related to indirect consumables using agentic AI. Sarvam AI will develop GenAI agents with multilingual support to improve customer interaction across touchpoints.
Siftly will work on the use of generative AI for enhancing brand visibility, while CodeMate AI will support faster development of software applications used in business processes.
For Maruti Suzuki, the move reflects a broader attempt to bring startup agility into large-scale manufacturing and customer-facing operations. For the startups, it offers access to real-world business challenges at automotive scale — where even a small efficiency gain can travel a long way, much like a well-tuned hatchback on an empty highway.
The latest cohort also underlines how India’s auto sector is increasingly looking beyond traditional manufacturing for growth. As mobility becomes more digital, connected and sustainability-focused, collaborations between automakers and startups are likely to play a larger role in shaping both the factory floor and the customer experience.
