The Hardware Story

Ep 4- The Hardware Story of Ati Motors | Autonomous Robots for Material movement in Factories

In this episode, we are meeting Saurabh Chandra, the Co-Founder and CEO of Ati Robotics, a Bangalore based company building Autonomous Robots for material movement in Factories.Ati has raised more than $37Mn, the latest lead by True Ventures in the US(we had shot this episode before Ati's last round), have deployed over 150 Robots with more than 40 large customers, 15 of these being in the Fortune 500.We get into the story of how Saurabh coming from a Software and Product Management background entered the space of Robotics, spent his own capital to fund the initial journey, built the initial Prototypes. We dive deeper into the challenges of building a robot to be deployed inside different types of factories, the Manufacturing ecosystem around Bangalore and how to go about B2B sales with Fortune 500 clients.Follow us for more updates on The Hardware Story Podcast:Linkedin: / apoorvshankar Instagram: / apoorvshankar Twitter: https://x.com/lazyapoorv/

Ep 3 -The Hardware Story of Miko Robotics w/ Sneh | Building Conversational learning Robots for Kids

In this episode, we are meeting Sneh Vaswani, the Co-Founder and CEO of Miko Robotics, the company behind the playful conversational learning Robot for kids you may have seen at almost all Hamleys stores. Miko is one of the first consumer hardware startups from the last decade to have scaled massively in global markets, having shipped half a million devices by mid-2024. We go deep into the story of how Sneh and his Roboticist teammates from IIT Bombay decided to build in the Kids learning space. Discuss how they built a conversational AI product before we saw Alexa coming to India, building a Hardware company out of Mumbai, raising investments, scaling Retail distribution in the US and the Meticulous process they followed for finding early signs of PMF before mass production.

Episode 2 - The Hardware Story of Ethereal Machines w/ Kaushik Mudda | Building a Deep tech Mfg company

In the second episode of the Hardware Story, we are meeting Kaushik Mudda, the Co-Founder and CEO of Ethereal Machines, a Deep-Tech start-up based out of Bangalore which manufactures its own 5-Axis CNC machines and caters to precision manufacturing needs of companies ranging from Consumer, Defense to Aerospace. Kaushik started Ethereal Machines in 2014 with his Co-Founder Navin Jain.Ethereal has 30 machines running 24x7 at their current manufacturing unit, they are moving to a 3L sq ft facility with the goal to have 70 machines by end of 2024 and they have raised USD23Mn so far. In this episode, we deep dive into the Hardware story of how Kaushik and Navin came up with the idea to build in Precision Manufacturing out of India. We discuss what it takes to build a deep tech Hardware venture, the history of CNC machines, India's manufacturing landscape and other opportunities in the manufacturing space. P.S. The audio is highly processed to reduce machining noise because we couldn't have had any down time on the machines. They literally run 24x7. Follow us for more updates on The Hardware Story Podcast: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apoorvshankar Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apoorvshankar/ Twitter: https://x.com/lazyapoorv/

Episode 1 - The Hardware Story of Inito w/ Aayush Rai | Building a B2C medical hardware company

In the first episode of the Hardware Story, we are meeting Aayush Rai, the Co-Founder and CEO of Inito, a home health testing company based out of Bangalore, India. Aayush started Inito in 2015 with his Co-Founder Varun. Their first product is an at-home Fertility Monitoring device that tracks fertility hormones in under 10 minutes for women trying to conceive. Inito has done over 5Mn tests and have raised USD15Mn so far. In this episode, we deep dive into the Hardware story of Inito and discuss the nuances of building a Medical grade Consumer hardware product, covering their journey from idea to prototype to product, their unconventional investment journey, challenges in Quality control, selection of the right partners and much more. Follow us for more updates on The Hardware Story Podcast: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apoorvshankar Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apoorvshankar/ Twitter: https://x.com/lazyapoorv/