Hardware isn't something that India is known for and it's also not something that a lot of Indian startups pursue. There's a couple of reasons for that firstly unlike in the world of software bootstrapping isn't really an option when it comes to hardware, r & d, prototyping, and manufacturing cost a lot of money. So unless you're independently wealthy bootstrapping a hardware startup just isn't going to work, which leaves two other options crowdfunding and venture capital. In the United States platforms like Kickstarter have empowered hardware startups to build products that VCs won't back. But this crowdfunding trend hasn't been as popular here in India. This leaves us with a third option venture capital but this option isn't without its challenges like I said earlier. India isn't known for hardware but china is, and so a lot of the international venture capital that's going into hardware is focused on China or companies that are outsourcing their r & d or their manufacturing to China. Nobody does hardware as well as china does and VCs know this. But in India, there's a very strong anti-china consumer sentiment right now and the government of India is also trying to reduce India's reliance upon anything and everything coming out of China. While also working very hard to make India a serious source of competition to china when it comes to manufacturing. By all accounts, they are succeeding. According to American real estate firm Cushman and wakefield's 2021 global manufacturing risk index India is currently the most attractive global manufacturing destination after China, which of course means that India is seeing a lot of manufacturing business right now from international customers. Many of which have ended their contracts with Chinese manufacturers in favor of Indian ones. But there's also a huge amount of demand from the local market for made-in-India hardware. In the last couple of years, we've started to see an uptick in the number of startups that are building physical technology products to meet that demand. Those are the startups that we're going to be talking about in today's blog post.


 India's top 10 hardware startups 


10. Open app

Starting things off at number 10 we have Bengaluru based smart lock maker open app back in 2014. Gotamagodha successfully sold his cupcake company, cupcakery, and was excited to start a new venture with his exit money. But this time he wanted to go beyond food. He wanted to start up in the hardware space and he settled on padlocks. See most people in 2015 were using regular metal locks and this is still true to this day but Gotama along with his two co-founders Siddesh kaluskar and Rajshay karjeni decided to upgrade these boring locks into smart IoT enabled locks. Today their smart padlocks and door locks are being used across 500000 locations and they're currently the largest smart lock maker in India. Today openapp has raised 2.2 million dollars from their investors.

 

9. Ajna Lens

Next up at number 9, we have Mumbai-based mixed reality startup Ajna lens founded by Abhijit Patil, Abhishek Tomar, gorov goodbullet and panka drought. In 2014 ajna lens actually began its journey at iit Bombay and at At the time the company was called the mention nxg. They were experimenting with 3d printing, 3d scanning and computer vision before eventually settling on mixed reality glasses in 2017. They spent the next three years researching and developing these glasses before eventually launching their first product Ajna bolt for the Indian military in 2020. Then in august of 2021, they launched Ajna x for enterprises which is sort of like an extension of the screens that we use in our day-to-day lives, you can pair the Ajna x with a keyboard and a mouse and open up files, images, videos and 3d holograms all around you. Today ajna lens has raised 2.2 million dollars from their investors.

 

8. Drinkprime

Moving on to number eight now we have Bengaluru-based smart arrow water purifier drink prime, founded by manashota vijandaredi in 2016. Drinkprime began its journey as waterwalla in 2014. To bring structure to India's disorganized drinking water space. They did this by delivering clean 20-liter water cans on demand but eventually realized that if they were going to truly revolutionize this space they were going to need to build a more scalable solution. It was at this point in 2016 that waterwalla became drink prime with the launch of their RO water purifier which drinkprime's customers can rent using monthly subscription plans. These machines were researched and developed in-house and drink prime has partnerships with a handful of Indian manufacturers who build these purifiers before they're sent out to drink prime's customers. Of which there are currently more than 25 000 across Bengaluru. So far drink prime has raised 3.9 million dollars from their investors.

 

7. Makers Hive

Coming in at number seven now we have Hyderabad-based health tech startup makers hive. Founded by Harsha Reddy, Bongoleti, Pranav Vimpati and Suran Maru Mamala in 2018. Makers hive's flagship product Cal arm is India's first fully functional bionic hand. It only costs between 3.5 and 4 lakh rupees which is about a tenth of the cost of similar products outside of India. Cal arm has 18 predefined grips 4 custom grips and an app that monitors the health of the bionic arm and can also be used to teach new grips. While this product is still in development makers hive has received hundreds of pre-orders. They've also raised nine million dollars from starfish growth partners to start manufacturing cal arm quickly and then eventually go on to build exoskeleton products for defense, industrial and medical applications.

 

6. Adamberg

Next up at number six we have Mumbai-based adam berg technologies. The startup's founders Manoj Mina and Siba Brattadas were working on research projects for organizations like ISRO and the DRDO when they came up with the idea for adam berg in 2012. This idea began with a prototype for an energy-efficient motor which manoj and sibarata quickly realized could be used to build energy-efficient ceiling fans. See ceiling fans in India typically operate between 75 and 80 watts but with adam berg's special motor that number is reduced to just 28 watts. Meaning that they're 66 percent more efficient after setting up a manufacturing facility in Mumbai Adamberg technologies went to market in 2015. Have since sold more than 1 million units so far adam burke has raised 20.5 million dollars from their investors. As the startup is now planning to expand into other home appliances like mixers, grinders, and air coolers.

 

5. Smartron

Moving on to number five now we have Hyderabad-based smartron. one of Smartron's founders Mahesh Lingard spent more than a decade building a semiconductor startup called soft machines in the United States. Which he ended up selling to intel in 2016 in a deal worth 250 million dollars and by that point, he had already started his next venture Smartron which he co-founded in 2014 with Rohit Rathi and Narci Reddy Bosham. Now, Smartron is both a hardware and a software startup. they've got physical products like laptops smartphones electric bikes and in the future, IoT-enabled home automation products. But Smartron's larger goal is to build an underlying ai powered ecosystem called Tron x. Which would essentially be an Indian competitor to ecosystems like google's with google assistant or Apple with Siri or Amazon with Alexa. Now in case you wanted to know whether or not Smartron is making their products in India, the answer is a hard no here's a quote from Mahesh explaining that perspective. Mahesh believes in outsourcing manufacturing to China. the same way that companies like Samsung and Apple do so that Smartron can focus more on the designing and engineering side of things. To do this they've raised approximately 30 million dollars from their investors 90 of which has been spent exclusively on r&d.

 

4. Emotics

coming in at number four now we have Mumbai-based Emotics founded in 2014 by Chintan Riker, Prashanthiyanga and Snevaswani Emotic spent their first few years doing rnd before eventually launching their first personal robot called Mikko in 2017. Then an updated version of this robot Miko 2 in 2019. Now these robots were designed developed and patented in India but their assembly has taken place in both China and Taiwan then more recently in India. As of 2019 but let's talk a little bit about the Mikko 2 which can interpret a child's mood and behavior using Ai and computer vision and also engages the child in educational conversations on predetermined topics that the child's parent chooses to use a smartphone app besides this. These robots can be used to facilitate video calls between working parents and their kids Miko. Twos are being sold now in more than 140 countries around the world and so far emotics investors have pumped 50.4 million dollars into the startup.

 

3. Goki

Next up at number three, we have California-based smart fitness startup Goki. Goki was founded in Mumbai by Vishal Gundo a serial entrepreneur who sold his game development company India games to Disney for a hundred million dollars in 2011. But building that startup had taken its toll vicho had gone from being fit and healthy to weighing over a hundred kilos. So to get back in shape he used his exit money to start goki in 2014. After some rnd which was done in India goki started selling wearable fitness devices. They were manufactured in china to track vital health statistics like oxygen levels blood pressure and heart rate today. Goki is the second-largest wristband wearables company in India by sales second only to Xiaomi with a 13.6 market share. They've also raised 52.6 million dollars from their investors, oh and in late 2020 they announced that they were committed to shifting their manufacturing from China to India.

 

2. Imaging Marketing

Moving on to number two now we have new Delhi-based imagine marketing founded by Aman Gupta and Samir Mitta in 2013 imagine marketing launched audio wearables brand boat in 2016. Right away they capitalized on India's growing community of smartphone users by selling charging cables and adapters as these users began streaming music with their new affordable jio 4g plans. Both started selling speakers and earphones and they were so successful with this that they're now the world's fifth-largest earware brand then after audio hardware. They also got into smartwatches and today across all of their product lines boat sells more than 15000 units a day and brought in revenue totaling 701 crore rupees in the financial year of 2020. With a profit of 49 crore rupees to date, the startup has Raised 116.3 million dollars from their investors 100 million dollars of which was raised in January of 2021. They're going to be using some of these funds to shift a majority of their manufacturing from China to India.

 

1. Grey Orange

Finally coming in at number one we have Singapore-based robotics startup Grey Orange was founded by Akash Gupta and Samee Koli in gurugram in 2011. Grey Orange is the perfect example of a hardware startup building from India for the world as only about 10 percent of its revenue comes from Indian customers. They have r d centers in gurugram and Boston their prototyping happens in Shenzhen. Their robots which are deployed in over 70 warehouses around the world increase warehouse productivity and efficiency and of course they also, lower costs by eliminating the need for lot of human workers so far gray orange has raised 170 million dollars from their investors. They're also planning on going public in the united states through space at some point in 2021 or 2022 at a valuation between 1.5 and 1.7 billion dollars.