Synopsis
Manav Robotics, a startup founded by former senior Ola executives Suvonil Chatterjee and Slokarth Dash, is in discussions with early-stage investor Blume Ventures and US-based Qualcomm Ventures to raise its maiden funding of around $15-20 million. The funding round could also see participation from a clutch of Indian founders.The funding round could also see participation from a clutch of Indian founders, one of the persons said, adding that these conversations are early and the startup is yet to finalise the round structure.
ET had first reported about Chatterjee and Dash’s startup in January, as part of a growing cohort of deeptech firms founded by top executives and founders from consumer internet companies.
Chatterjee, a long-time aide to Bhavish Aggarwal, was chief product and technology officer at Ola Electric. He teamed up with Dash, who was the strategy head at the EV maker and earlier led the ride-hailing firm’s fleets unit, to launch Manav Robotics in early 2025. The startup has been bootstrapped so far and is backed by personal investments from the two founders.
While the startup is now in talks to raise its maiden funding, the Indian robotics space has seen a flurry of investment activity over the last 12-15 months. “India’s manufacturing and hardware ecosystem has been evolving over the past decade. Now, robotics is emerging as the next big wave… what many are calling physical AI. The first clear use cases are in industrials and manufacturing, and you can already see an ecosystem taking shape around the software and intelligence layers of the stack,” a venture capital investor said.
Earlier, other startups in this space have attracted investor interest. Such as General Autonomy, started by Sharechat founders, which got $3 million from India Quotient and Elevation Capital; CynLr, which has raised over $15 million from the likes of Speciale Invest, Athera Venture Partners, Info Edge, and Singularity Ventures; and Bengaluru-based Ati Motors, which has raised over $35 million from Blume, Athera, and Exfinity Venture Partners.
Manav Robotics is focussed on industrial use-cases and is building a robotic hand that, according to people aware of its plans, can “feel” and sense its actions through touch, force, position awareness, and vision, enabling more precise object handling in industrial settings.
“The core idea is that robots learn better from touch and physical interaction, not just from watching videos. Most teams train robots using camera footage or remote control demos, but that doesn’t capture what it actually feels like to handle objects… like how much force to apply, when something slips, or how parts fit together. Manav’s view is that this kind of contact data is essential for robots to work reliably in the real world,” the person cited above said, adding that this is the area where the company is focussing its research on.
The startup has also built “contact gloves” that turn factory workers into data collectors for its robots. The gloves, which Manav Robotics plans to patent, are designed to mirror the movement of the company’s robotic hand to directly translate what a worker does into how the robot would perform the same task
“Manav is already deploying these gloves with automotive and component manufacturers, collecting thousands of hours of real-world production data to train its AI,” the person said.
