AI coding startup Cursor is preparing to deepen its presence in India by opening its first physical office in the country before the end of 2026. Simon Green, Cursor’s head of Asia-Pacific and Japan, said the company will make significant go-to-market investments in India over the next five months.
The move comes as competition among AI companies heats up in one of the world’s largest developer markets. Cursor has already built a substantial user base in India, while rivals including OpenAI and Anthropic are also expanding their local operations.
Cursor has recently hired employees across customer success, government affairs, technical support and go-to-market functions in Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. These employees currently work remotely, but the company plans to bring teams into physical locations later this year.
Credits: Bloomberg
India Becomes a Key Market for Cursor
Cursor’s decision to establish an office follows rapid growth in its Indian user base. The company said last month that the number of developers using Cursor in India had tripled over the past year, surpassing 3 million users.
That makes India Cursor’s third-largest market globally and highlights the enormous opportunity presented by the country’s developer community.
Green described India as a market with both tremendous scale and strong technical capabilities. The country produces a huge number of engineers, while software development remains a major part of its technology ecosystem.
Cursor is now attempting to convert that popularity into deeper commercial adoption, particularly among businesses and enterprise customers.
Cursor Launches a Cheaper India-Specific Plan
As part of its India strategy, Cursor recently introduced Cursor Start, a subscription tier specifically designed for the Indian market.
Priced at Rs 649 per month, Cursor Start sits between the company’s free plan and its $20-per-month Pro subscription. The company is also allowing Indian developers to pay using UPI, making the service more accessible to local users.
India is the first country where Cursor has introduced a dedicated subscription tier.
The plan is aimed at users who have outgrown the free version but may not want to pay the full price of the Pro plan. It provides greater access to Cursor’s agentic and cloud capabilities, including generous access to Grok 4.5 and Cursor’s Composer coding model.
However, advanced features such as Bugbot, Auto Mode and Automations, along with access to certain third-party frontier models, remain exclusive to the Pro tier.
Cursor Targets Enterprise Adoption
Although individual developers currently make up a significant portion of Cursor’s Indian user base, the company is increasingly targeting businesses.
Cursor has already partnered with Infosys to establish a Center of Excellence focused on accelerating enterprise adoption of AI-powered software engineering agents. The partnership gives more than 100,000 Infosys engineers access to Cursor’s agentic coding capabilities and integrates the platform with the Infosys Topaz Fabric ecosystem.
Cursor expects enterprise demand to increase as it expands its sales operations in India.
The company is also looking at data sovereignty, an increasingly important issue as governments and businesses demand that sensitive data and AI inference infrastructure remain within national borders.
AI Companies Are Racing Into India
Cursor’s expansion comes as other leading AI companies strengthen their Indian presence.
Anthropic opened its first Indian office in Bengaluru in February 2026 after announcing its market expansion plans in 2025. OpenAI, meanwhile, is preparing to open offices in Bengaluru and Mumbai, adding to its existing presence in New Delhi.
This growing competition reflects India’s importance to the global AI industry. Its enormous developer population offers companies both a huge customer base and a deep pool of technical talent.
For Cursor, the upcoming office could therefore be more than just a local base. It could become a launchpad for winning developers, enterprises and AI-driven software projects across the country.
Credits: CNBC
SpaceX Acquisition Adds Another Dimension
Cursor’s India expansion is also taking place amid its proposed acquisition by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
SpaceX announced plans in June to acquire Cursor for $60 billion, following an option secured earlier in the year. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.
If completed, the acquisition could give Cursor access to even greater resources as it competes in the rapidly evolving AI coding market.
With millions of Indian developers already using its platform, Cursor appears determined to turn early popularity into a much larger business. Its first physical office may be the clearest sign yet that India is becoming a central part of the company’s global strategy.
