How Mukunda Foods Founder’s New Venture Is Reimagining Indian Kitchens With AI

The good old way to the heart through the stomach has just got smarter. From refrigerators, air fryers, pressure cookers and pan stirrers to blenders, storage systems, smoke detectors and soap dispensers – smart makes a rightful association with most kitchen appliances. But, there’s a lot beyond the machines that can make the kitchen itself smarter. 

Beyond Appliances scored the brownie point by jumping into the white spaces left between the smart devices. As artificial intelligence makes a natural progression into our lives and disrupts every corner of our homes – from bedrooms to studies and dinner tables to washrooms – our kitchens cannot be left out of the disruption. 

“Disconnect from the world; reconnect with yourself,” suggests the landing page of the Bengaluru-based startup’s website, as it aims to integrate AI with everyday functionality to reimagine home cooking. “We build solutions that can cook dosas, burgers, sandwiches, Asian cuisine, Indian gravies, biryanis – you name it,” said Eshwar K Vikas, as he explained how AI can transform the kitchen into a treasure house of gastronomic fantasies. 

As India’s smart home market grows 30% a year to reach $19.31 Bn in the next five years, the country’s smart kitchen appliances market, too, grows in sync, driving home a revenue of $1,060.4 Mn in 2022 and staying the course to fetch $4,848.8 Mn by 2030, when the country aims to be a $10 Tn developed economy. 

“We had access to strong technology. We developed innovative food bots and became an end-to-end solution provider in the kitchen robotics space with in-house R&D, a manufacturing facility, and a global service network,” said Vikas, who took a leaf out of his journey with food robotics startup Mukunda Foods and cofounded Beyond Appliances in August 2024 with his colleague Rakesh Patil. 

After successful deployment of robotic innovations of Mukunda Foods in more than 25,000 restaurants across India, he planned to enter the household kitchens. Vikas’s brainchild soon spun into a standalone venture as Beyond Appliances and raised $2 Mn in a seed round, led by Fireside Ventures, with participation from Dharana Capital and a bunch of prominent angel investors. 

Beyond Appliances has sold over 1,500 chimneys and hobtops so far through its own website, on ecommerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart, and from select retail stores across Bengaluru.

The Birth Of The Idea

The founders were seasoned in running the B2B business at Mukunda Foods and making the robotics foods startup an INR 50 Cr brand. “But, it never really occurred to us to launch another brand or tap into the consumer space,” said Vikas.

The idea took its birth when Mukunda Foods cofounders Vikas and Sudeep Sabat were scaling their business and raising capital. That’s when the investment community and even the company’s board started pushing them to explore the consumer space and build products for households.

“We took a step back to assess the real scope of AI in the Indian kitchen. Will something like this even work? And in what shape or form?” Vikas told Inc42.

They started visiting homes, observing kitchens, and trying to understand consumer behaviour. They realised that the entire home has been disrupted by technology, but the kitchens have not changed much.

“While there were some brands that had smart kitchen appliances, and even some big brands were trying to bring in innovation, most of these were simply trading Chinese products in India and didn’t have proper R&D setup,” he said. 

“We had achieved what we wanted at Mukunda. Sudeep continued to stay with Mukunda while I took off to focus on Beyond.”

Beyond Appliances was a fledgling AI-powered smart kitchen startup under Mukunda as it took off with just two products in January 2024. Six months on, Vikas and Patil, who is still the CTO of Mukunda, decided to make it a standalone brand.

With Vikas’s experience in kitchen automation and Patil’s expertise in advanced engineering, Beyond Appliances was backed by a deep understanding of modifying household kitchens. Its focus is not just on building innovative products, but on creating solutions that address real, everyday kitchen challenges.

Beyond’s smart kitchen solutions are designed specifically for Indian homes, incorporating features like timer-controlled cooking in 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 claimed.

Bringing AI Into Indian Kitchens

Unlike traditional players like Bosch, Faber, Glen, or Prestige, which largely offer standard mechanical appliances, Beyond claims to offer a product lineup that blends AI, IoT, automation, and user-centric design. Another key differentiator is its ability to roll out software updates and ML model upgrades for the existing appliances. “It’s a unique feature in this category,” Vikas claimed.

It takes INR 9,000 to INR 15,000 to transform a traditional household kitchen into a smart kitchen without the need to invest in smart appliances, according to him. The company upgrades the existing gadgets to function on AI-powered instructions. 

While traditional brands rely on mass-market modular manufacturing, Beyond claims to build and refine its systems based on real-life kitchen usage data, drawn from Mukunda Foods and insights from a network of chefs and sensor-driven feedback.

The brand has six SKUs, packed with features tailored to Indian kitchens. Its smart cooktop, for instance, comes with a digital timer-controlled system, allowing the user to set timers for individual burners, just like a microwave oven. It also includes a Flame Failure Device (FFD), ensuring zero chances of gas leakage. 

Its Orion Android-powered Chimney comes with a 7-inch touchscreen, OTT and YouTube access, predictive maintenance alerts, and a 3D suction system. The Asteria Chimney combines smart utility with infotainment and offers a recipe screen, chef connect, dry heat auto-clean, and a high-powered motor for effective suction.

Another key product is the Dorado Hobtop, which features timer-controlled cooking, FFD on all burners, superior auto ignition, digital timers, and a convertible hobtop design that adapts to varying kitchen layouts.

The company has refined its features based on user feedback and real-life usage. One key innovation was the addition of 3D suction technology in chimneys. “European-style chimneys often underperform in spice-heavy Indian cooking. We redesigned the system to fix that, and it’s now a patented design,” he said.

“We have built a network of chefs and captured real-life cooking patterns. Our ML models are trained on sensor data, whistle counters, and more. All our chimneys are software upgradeable, so even older units can evolve – making Beyond Appliances less of a hardware brand and more of a tech platform.”

Beyond Appliances’ Elara chimney uses sound and sensor data to detect pressure cooker whistles. It features an intelligent whistle counter sensor, 1350 CMH suction power, a filterless design, Bluetooth connectivity, built-in FM radio, and auto shutdown.

“Dal and chole, for instance, have different whistle patterns. Our system is being trained to recognise these nuances and deliver contextual prompts. This makes the chimney a real-time cooking assistant,” said Vikas. Even without a smart cooktop, the AI chimney functions as a standalone smart guide through its intelligent sensors.

The Blueprint For Growth

Economic fundamentals are in favour of a smooth sail for Beyond Appliances. The country’s booming middle class, defined by households earning INR 5 Lakh to INR 30 Lakh annually, is expected to make up 60% of the population by 2047, according to media reports. 

By the time India turns 100, its per capita income is projected to surge to $26,000 — nearly 13 times higher than its 2023 level, according to a PwC report. “The cost of setting up a smart kitchen is well within the affordability of the average Indian household. The rapid growth in urbanisation, increasing access to education, and advancement of technology will only bolster the demand for solutions like this,” said Vikas. 

Beyond’s offerings, according to the founder, aim to solve challenges that most legacy brands have overlooked. One of the biggest gaps, he said, lies in manufacturing. “While most brands in the segment merely import and trade appliances from overseas, Beyond Appliances is pushing boundaries in how kitchen appliances are made in India.” 

The brand’s manufacturing unit in Bengaluru makes most of its products. The biggest challenge in front of the brand is imitability. “Despite holding the IP, protecting innovation is difficult in India. To protect against imitability, we will keep on bringing innovation and speed to market,” he said.

“We want to bring the smartphone model into the appliance world, where customers look forward to the next version of our products, just like an iPhone,” said the founder. To enable this, Beyond is working with Flipkart on an exchange model to drive recurring upgrades and build loyalty. The brand has also partnered with Urban Company to firm up its after-sales services and boost consumer confidence.

The company expects to close FY25 with INR 5–6 Cr revenue and is projecting a strong leap to INR 25 Cr in FY26. In the long term, the brand aims to hit INR 100 Cr in revenue in the next three years.

The company plans to launch six more SKUs in the next two months in the chimney, hob, and cooktop categories. In the hob and stove segment, the new models will feature methane sensors to detect gas leaks, enhancing kitchen safety. It also plans to go deep with its AI integration.

The company is focussing on innovation for safety, personalisation, and intelligent cooking assistance. The brand will introduce an AI-powered cooking assistant, an in-built AI Chef. “The goal is to build a Google Maps equivalent in cooking, where users receive real-time, intelligent prompts and corrections during the process. With AI-enabled cameras and sensors, the system will monitor the progress and guide users with precise suggestions.” The feature will be built on Beyond’s Chef Connect system. 

[Edited By Kumar Chatterjee]