No time to cook? This AI-powered ‘up-liance' will prepare your hearty meals

Time of India

3 days ago

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upliance.ai co-founders MohitSharma and Mahek Mody.
In today's fast-paced world, the pleasure of cooking requires more than just skills—it demands time. While working professionals are becoming more health conscious and recognising the benefits of home-made food, they often lack the time to cook. Understanding that thought, IIT Bombay alumni Mahek Mody and Mohit Sharma decided to merge technology with cooking and founded an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cooking appliance brand upliance.ai in 2021.The upliance cooking package comes with AI-powered software installed on a tablet along with a set of utensils—a jar, spatula, steamer basket, butterfly whisk, blade, blade cover, crown, measuring spoons and blade lock. In the device, the jar and the tablet are adjacent to each other and the device automates various cooking steps such as heating, chopping and stirring your food. The software contains more than 500 recipes around the world with detailed instructions and any recipe can be customised.Both Sharma and Mody bring together over a decade of experience in product development from their time at Chaayos and Ather Energy . During a casual meeting in the midst of the pandemic, the duo discussed how a lot of people, like themselves, were figuring out food and cooking for the first time.'Mohit had spent around 5 years at Chaayos, where every machine was designed to make specificand he was responsible for that. Mohit convinced me that food is a combination of art and science. We realised that if a machine could monitor every step of cooking in detail—for example, monitoring the exact temperature of food before you need to add an ingredient or how many tomatoes exactly are needed to make the dish tangy—it could make cooking much easier for people,' he said.The duo then incorporated the company in 2021; however, it took them almost two years of research and development to come up with the commercial product.'For example, we spent one month just cooking tomatoes. Understanding different types of tomatoes and cooking them in different ways for Indian, Korean, or Italian recipes. The device should be able to cook in all forms. We needed to do all such tests to build this technology,' Mody said.Today, upliance.ai can cook dishes ranging from pizza, butter chicken, and pav bhaji to rice products like pulao and biriyani. The recipes can be customised as per user preferences, such as by replacing onions and garlic with an alternative. It can even access videos from YouTube, and its customised recipe can be prepared in three minutes.Since its commercial launch in 2023, the company has so far gained over 10,000 customers. The entire upliance package costs Rs 27,999. There is no subscription charge now for upliance's software, but they plan to charge for it in the long run. The company has a production capacity of 5,000 units every month.Mody highlighted that upliance can cook 5-6% faster than the time it takes to cook it through traditional means. 'It can take a person around 2-5 years of daily cooking to become well-versed and handy in the kitchen. With upliance.ai , you are already at a pro level and can indulge easily even in fancy food,' he said.Sameer Jain, Managing Director of Primus Partners, said that AI is quietly reshaping the way we cook. In India, AI-based cooking is gaining traction, especially in urban households and the food service industry. With busy lifestyles, young professionals and working families are turning to AI-powered meal planning apps, voice assistants, and smart cookers for convenience.'At home, apps like Yummly or Samsung Food can suggest what to cook based on what's lying in your fridge or your mood. Some smart ovens, like Tovala, even take care of the cooking for you—just scan the meal, and it's done. In restaurants, robots like Flippy in the US flip burgers, while Mukunda Foods in India has built machines that can make dosas, rice, or curries with zero fuss. Cloud kitchens are using AI to plan menus and reduce waste. The future kitchen blends creativity with intelligent automation,' he said.Talking about challenges, Mody said that while initially it was difficult to convince investors during the R&D period, once the product was ready within 1.5 years, a live demo helped gain investment. upliance.ai also appeared on Shark Tank, which, although it did not result in any investment, did give them visibility.Mody said while they do not have direct competition on the AI part, there are companies like Wonderchef, which have launched similar products that automate cooking processes like cutting, stirring, and even cleaning the device.In 2023, upliance.ai raised Rs 11 crore in funding from Draper Associates (run by early Tesla and SpaceX investor Tim Draper ), Zerodha-backed Rainmatter, and Rukam Capital. In 2024, it raised Rs 34 crore in a round led by Khosla Ventures. upliance.ai clocked a revenue of Rs 1.5 crore in FY24 and Rs 6.7 crore in FY25 and is targeting Rs 20 crore in FY26.