upliance.ai Bags INR 34 Cr From Khosla Ventures, Others To Bolster AI-Powered Home Appliance Play

Home appliance startup upliance.ai has raised INR 34 Cr (over $4 Mn) in its seed funding round led by Khosla Ventures. 

The funding round pegged the startup at a valuation of INR 143 Cr, upliance said in a statement without disclosing the name of other investors.

upliance plans to use the fresh proceeds to ramp up the production of its first product, AI-powered cooking assistant upliance, to 20,000 units per annum in the next six months. The startup also aims to utilise the capital to scale up its revenue to INR 150 Cr by the end of 2024. 

upliance featured in the February 2023 edition of Inc42’s ‘30 Startups To Watch’. It also recently featured on Shark Tank India Season 3 but failed to grab any deal from the sharks on the popular TV show. 

Founded in 2021 by ex-Ather Energy executive Mahek Mody and former Chaayos employee Mohit Sharma, upliance.ai sells an AI-powered ‘Smart Jar’ that can perform multiple cooking tasks such as chopping, sauteing, blending, heating and steaming.

The product comes with a touchscreen and leverages machine learning and AI to automate cooking tasks. 

“We are extremely excited about having Khosla Ventures as partners. Their investment is a validation of both the potential of upliance.ai and the traction we have seen in the market,” said upliance.ai chief executive officer (CEO) Mody.

Commenting on the fundraise, Khosla Ventures partner Rajesh Swaminathan said, “Mahek and his team have built a product that early consumers love and has the potential to significantly change people’s daily eating routines. We are also excited about the health benefits and AI integration capabilities possible with upliance.ai. These are the bold bets we like to take.”

Earlier, the Bengaluru-based startup raised $1.5 Mn in its pre-seed round from Nikhil Kamath-led Rainmatter Fund, Draper Associates, Rukam Capital, Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs India, as well as undisclosed cofounders of Ather Energy and Unacademy. 

upliance.ai claims to have clocked a revenue of INR 1.5 Cr till January 2024 and sold 750 units within nine months of the launch of the product in January last year. In a statement, the startup said it plans to sell 1,500 units by March 2024 and is looking to scale up the number of its active community members to 10,000 by 2024-end.

The development comes at a time when deeptech startups have become an attractive bet for investors. Despite being a time-consuming proposition owing to a longer gestation period before product launch and the requirement of extensive R&D, the deeptech sector saw hefty capital inflow in 2023 despite funding winter. 

As per Inc42 data, Indian deeptech startups raised over $496 Mn in funding in 2023, up from $397 Mn in 2022. Till date, the sector has raised capital in excess of $1.5 Bn and even minted a mega deal ($100 Mn+ round) in the form of GreyOrange last year.

The sector even found mention in the interim Budget 2024. The Centre earmarked a mega INR 1 Lakh Cr corpus for Indian startups to fuel research and development in the sunrise sectors. The government also proposed a new scheme that would push the deployment of deeptech technologies in the defence sector.