CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Mr. Mohit Sharma, co-founder of Up⤴️
- Up⤴️ claims to be a tech-first consumer hardware startup that focuses on leveling up⤴️ lives. Is the dream of a Smart and Connected India far-fetched or are Indians ready for the move towards a technologically advanced home?
Smartphones are already a well established part for young Indian kitchen, home chefs use them to cook new and interesting things all the time. We are simply turning this up to 11 by creating a dedicated appliance for it.
Internet adoption in India has been one of the fastest in the world, UPI was embraced as soon as its convenience was evident, Electric vehicles are having their moment now like never before. India has always been ready for smart and connected, there has never been a worthy home appliance.
At Up⤴️, we are at forefront of the transition towards creating innovative, connected appliances that truly level up our customers’ lives. Pandemic has been a watershed event that made everyone truly appreciate the blessing of a ‘Home’. With greater time spent, Homes are truly becoming an extension of the personality of the Indian and this is also paving way for adoption of technology in Home.
Our vision for the future of home and cooking is not about robots taking over, rather empowering people to be able to do more at home without being limited by mundane house chores. We want to Level Up homes not make them boring.
Our first product, the delishUp⤴️, focuses on making the cooking at home elevated.. Many Indians today are relying on YouTube videos and social media to unlock the power to cook. With the delishUp⤴️️ users can choose from 200+ guided recipes on the touchscreen that come with how-to videos and step by step instructions while the hard work and the stress of cooking is taken out of the equation. The smart cooking jar powered by Up⤴️AI can chop, stir, saute and cook your food perfectly, everytime.
What research went into the development of your product the delishUp⤴️ and how was customer feedback incorporated into the final design?
The delishUp⤴️ is a result of 100s of iterations of product design, engineering and consumer into the loop development, followed by rigorous testing in Indian Kitchen environment to make the product robust and delivery ready.
As soon as we made the first prototype in Aug 2021, the first thing we did was to drop it at a consumer home for a day and see how they used it. This later expanded into a beta program that expanded to 350 homes.
This helps in developing proprietary AI tech to power the delishUp⤴️, called Up⤴️AI. We programmed in the basics of food science, data about ingredients and then recorded temperature, heating and weight data to train the AI. The delishUp⤴️ has been trained by more than 5000 cooking sessions by chef’s and beta users through its development stage. All of the features and recipes on the delishUp⤴️ have been developed upon on user requests and feedback. For example, the pause feature on the delishUp⤴️ is a feature requested by an early beta user. The ability to “pause” cooking is a first of its kind feature for any appliance.
This technology is only possible with moderns Arm based quad code processors and being part of the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge (QDIC), gave us access to their expertise and allowed for significant development of the delishUp⤴️. We look forward for this to be a longer term partnership.
The development of the delishUp⤴️ resulted in 3 patents being filed, protecting our IP around how we control the heating, cutting and stirring functions using AI.
The delishUp⤴️ has AI as part of its technology, could you shed some more light on how the team has integrated AI into the product?
Our Smart Cooking Assistant, delishUp⤴️ is powered by our proprietary technology, Up⤴️AI. It continuously monitors and adapts to the food being cooked, whether its Indian, Continental or Oriental cuisine. The AI has been trained through more than 5000 cooking sessions by chefs, expert home cooks and food scientists. and constantly improves with every cooking session. It ensures your vegetables are chopped to the right size by precisely controlling the blades. It estimates the temperature of your food every second and adapts and adjusts heat accordingly, to cook food perfectly.
The technology that we use in the product offers never-seen-before abilities like “Pausing” cooking and “Active” cutting. The algorithms on delishUp⤴️ automatically stir the food being cooked, with the blade acting as a spatula that can toss soft ingredients like paneer and leafy vegetables. Up⤴️AI is rapidly learning from consumer input and preferences, constantly improving their cooking experience and the quality of recipes and food. These improvements are then rolled out in real time to all active devices, making the product better with time and use.
Please shed some light on the product’s unique features and how it aims to revolutionise the Indian kitchen. Are the products available to buy in-stores?
delishUp⤴️ empowers people to cook anything they want without worrying about the “how?”. It is specially designed for amateur cooks to start cooking without the stress and hassle of figuring out how.
With step by step instructions and how to videos that come with guided recipes on it’s touchscreen, the delishUp⤴️ enables one to cook a wide range of meals, including soups, noodles, rice, desserts, meats and vegetables no matter their skills.
Daily routine cooking tasks like chopping and stirring, cutting, grinding, kneading, sautéing or steaming is done by this smart cooking assistant.
The proprietary AI technology of Up⤴️, resides in the cloud and ensures your food is cooked just right. It ensures your vegetables are chopped to the right size by precisely controlling the blades. It estimates the temperature of your food every second and adapts and adjusts heat accordingly, to cook food perfectly.
We realised that millennials are constantly seeking exciting food experiences that won’t break the bank or their health.The delishUp⤴️ also comes with intergrated smart weighing scales that help with portions. delishUp⤴️ can connect to your home wi-fi network and its over-the-air (OTA) upgrades provide real time access to new features, enhancements or even the new recipes being built by Team Up⤴️.
Given that we are a completely D2C brand, people can buy our products on the website www.upliance.ai. We know that there might be people who are dubious of buying the product, since Smart Kitchen Tech still seems like a futuristic proposition, A 4-day try before you buy option is also available in at INR499 in Bengaluru. One can also see the delishUp⤴️ in action by booking for a free demo session In-person or online.
What are some of the challenges you faced while developing the product?
Our biggest challenge initially was to build a team and a product simultaneously while bootstrapped. Only after we designed and started running our beta program extremely frugally were we able to showcase our vision with “Upliances”, were we able to raise money to productionize hardware. Once we had prototypes we were able to showcase our product to the likes of Nithin Kamath, and Tim Draper, who later decided to invest in us.
Another challenge has been to learn the first principles of Indian cooking. Where there is a lot of material out there that talks about food science of western food. Indian food needed decoding and understanding of nuances. We actually had to make 50+ kgs of Tadka before we for Up⤴️AI trained on getting it right everytime. Krish Ashok’s book on Indian cooking was our starting point, but I now I think we have one of the best technical understandings of cooking food to Indian tastes and textures.
As a technology startup, what are your next steps with Up⤴️?
Up⤴️ is an smart home appliance company and we believe connected appliances should exist and they should work like magic. The technology for that exists today, it’s just the devices that need to be designed and built. This is the premise that kickstarted the journey for us and is what will drive us through the future.
Over the next five years, our goal is to establish Up⤴️ as the go-to home upliances brand for young India. We are currently focusing on making the delishUp⤴️ a household name and have it in over 150,000 homes across the country within this year. We want to introduce upto 1000 more recipes on the delishUp⤴️. You will see a Pro and a Light version of the delishUp⤴️ in the market very soon. In the long run, we aim to create more products like DelishUp⤴️ that will elevate young homes in India and beyond. We are contemplating on innovative versions of the Microwave (codenamed: WarmUp⤴️) and Refrigerator (codenamed: ChillUp⤴️). We also intend to expand into the South East Asian Markets in the near future.
The larger goal we have at Up⤴️, is to shape the homes of the future through the connected appliances we build today. We aspire to cater to young homes that envision a new way of life, homes that strive for more, do more and achieve more.
Challenges while developing the product – Up
