Up (previously React Labs), a consumer hardware startup, has raised $500,000 (around Rs 4.1 crore) as part of its pre-seed funding from Nithin Kamath-led Rainmatter, the company announced on Thursday.
Up has also received investment from Tarun Mehta, and Swapnil Jain, co-founders of Ather Energy; Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, the Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs India.
Additionally, Tim Draper was an early participant in the company’s pre-seed funding round.
Draper has been an early investor in companies like Tesla, Angelist, Coinbase, Switch, Skype and Hotmail.
The funds raised from the pre-seed round will be used to execute the go-to-market strategy of the company’s first product delishUp. The device features a touch screen with unlimited guided recipes, coupled with a jar which heats and cooks, and offers controlled chopping, stirring and other culinary functions.
Founded by Mahek Mody and Mohit Sharma, the Bengaluru-based startup closed its pre-seed round at a total of $1.3 million. Mody was ex-Chief of Staff at Ather Energy while Sharma served as Head of Engineering at Chaayos. Both are IIT Bombay alumni.
The startup is also part of Qualcomm’s 2022-23 accelerator program through the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge (QDIC). Through QDIC, the startup is building technical collaboration with Qualcomm.
Since their beta-testing phase, the startup claims to have seen an influx of inquiries and consumers have been signing up for early access to the delishUp before deliveries begin in December.
“We are looking forward to taking delishUp to consumers across the country. Most other services available in the market focus on the exercise or ‘calories out’ options, but nearly none of them are offering users the superpower to take control of ‘calories in,” Mody said in a statement.