Every evening, Ananya Tanwar (name changed), a 36-year-old data analyst, juggles her time between prepping dinner and entertaining her toddler, while an old air-purifier whirs feebly in a corner, its effectiveness long forgotten. Her stove’s timer is unreliable, and the fan barely keeps up with the rising summer heat.

“I just wish my home knew what I need to stay comfortable,” she laughs, half-exasperated.

Ananya’s frustration echoes across many middle-class Indian households.

A new wave of startups — Karban Envirotech, Beyond Appliances, upliance.ai, and Atomberg, among others — want to make a difference by not just building smart appliances but also solving tech and design problems that are uniquely Indian in nature.

The country is home to over 142 smart appliance startups, which have collectively raised $36.1 million in equity funding since 2021, according to data from market intelligence platform Tracxn.

Problem statement

Walk into any urban Indian home today, and you’re very likely to find an array of gadgets — from fans and air purifiers to ACs, coolers, and even lights — each with their own remote and app.

Take Karban’s ‘3 in 1 Ultra Appliance’, for instance.

An Android-powered chimney from Beyond Appliances

“No one was combining a fan, air purifier, and chandelier into a single multi-utility product. Noticing this gap, we patented our product,” says Karan Bansal, founder and CEO of Karban Envirotech.

Karban leverages computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology and aerospace engineering to optimise the efficiency of airflow devices like fans and air purifiers. (CFD is essentially a computer-based method for simulating and analysing fluid flow, including liquids, gases, and plasmas.)

Bengaluru-based Beyond Appliances is cooking up something equally bold, as it aims to integrate AI with everyday home cooking.

The startup’s smart kitchen solutions are designed specifically to meet the needs of Indian homes, says its founder, Eshwar K Vikas. So you have timer-controlled cooktops and hobs, and 3D suction in chimneys. “These aren’t just superficial add-ons — they are engineered to handle the practical realities of Indian cooking, from spice-laden dishes to usage across multiple generations,” Vikas says.

From upliance.ai comes a personal cooking assistant, ‘Upliance’, which is meant to help dish out the distinctive flavours and textures of Indian cuisine. So you have 500-plus pre-loaded recipes and 16 automated cooking functions — from portioning, chopping and mixing to sautéing, stirring and serving a full meal for four people.

The appliance comes with a smart jar equipped with a patented omni blade that can double as a spatula and blender, as also multiple sensors for thermal and precise blade motion control. There is also an eight-inch touchscreen to display recipes and video cooking instructions, as well as cooking accessories. “We have six or seven patents for motors and heaters, and for controlling them with incredible precision,” says Mahek Mody, co-founder of upliance.ai.

Built in India

Smart home innovation isn’t just being imagined in India — it is being engineered and assembled here from scratch. The startups take pride in keeping their design, R&D, and production local.

Karban’s R&D and manufacturing capability is entirely in-house. “We wanted to keep control over quality and the required modifications,” says Bansal.

Beyond Appliances manufactures at its own facility, whereas upliance.ai partners with contract manufacturers while keeping the core IP in-house.

Growth factor

Even as they garner growing consumer interest in their smarter, design-forward appliances, the new-age home-tech startups appear in no rush to scale up.

At Karban, for instance, business growth has been constrained by lack of production capacity rather than demand. “In the past year, we have increased our customer base by 50 per cent,” says Bansal.

The company, which currently gets its wooden products handcrafted, is gradually transitioning to injection-moulded plastic housings — a move that could expand its output dramatically.

At Beyond Appliances, the momentum in the manufacture and sale of its AI-powered chimneys and stoves has been rapid from the start. “We sold about 1,500 units in March, with an average price of around ₹20,000,” says Vikas. The company targets monthly sales of 5,000 units by Q3 and ₹100 crore revenue in FY25.

upliance.ai has registered a similar growth in business for its smart counter-top cooking assistant. “We already do an ARR (annual recurring revenue) of ₹30-40 crore,” says Mody. With 90 per cent of its sales coming from online channels, including more than 50 per cent through its own website, the company is now experimenting with offline experience centres in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.

Funding interest

While the new-age appliance startups are scoring wins in innovation and consumer adoption, scaling up has been hampered by factors ranging from manufacturing constraints to hurdles in offline distribution. Logistics and last-mile delivery remain challenging, especially outside major metros.

In the appliances segment, offline retail still accounts for nearly 90 per cent of purchases. The share of the smart appliances segment has risen from 4 per cent of a $3-billion market pre-Covid, to nearly 10 per cent of $10 billion in 2023, and expected to reach 25-28 per cent of a $15-billion market by 2028.

Venture capital interest is on the rise in IoT and smart home startups, including security systems and energy management solutions, says Ankur Bansal, MD, Blacksoil. “Government initiatives such as Digital India and Smart Cities Mission are further accelerating IoT adoption, creating a fertile ground for startup innovation,” he adds.