Building a connected ecosystem of home, fitness and kitchen products

Leveraging the power of ecommerce marketplaces, SOLARA has rapidly become a credible rival to established names in the home, kitchen and lifestyle appliances space.

Having witnessed the growth of the home and kitchen category at Amazon in the USA, founder Gopal Kolli realised the huge potential of the same in the Indian market and decided to go after this segment. He saw that the Indian small home and kitchen appliances category is dominated by legacy brands, and not many D2C players had taken a crack at it.

SOLARA claims its current monthly revenue in early 2022 is upwards of INR 2 Cr per month and it plans to hit an INR 100 Cr yearly run rate by March 2023. It started selling on Amazon India in Jan 2021, when it was selling around 5-10 units a day, but this grew to over 400-500 units a day in December. Kolli claims the startup currently ships around 15,000 units a month.

Launched in January 2021, SOLARA decided to venture into the market with products that appeal to millennial and GenZ families and homes. The focus was on product quality and trendy designs, but also on a platform approach, which the company enabled through its SOLARA Home app, which not only acts as a content and communication hub but also to use and monitor connected SOLARA devices such as the smart weighing scales.

The company started off with sleep solutions products, a category that had already gained major traction on Amazon India and ecommerce in general. It launched pillows and mattresses, before venturing into the kitchen category with bottles and its flagship product, the air fryer. The kitchen products were added between March and April 2021, and were joined by fitness products such as resistance bands in May 2021, followed by smart weighing scales, ab rollers, yoga mats and more. It has also bolstered its kitchen lineup with electric kettles and kitchen scales.

While it launched in India because the founder saw a gap, it is using this experience to launch in Europe by March 2022. It is planning to make a big splash in the kitchen space before launching in the US by the end of 2022. While it’s a long way away and the startup has to fight off major competition along the way, Kolli says the plan is to hit $100 Mn ARR by March 2026.