Nithin Kamath’s Rainmatter invests in Tim Draper-backed smart cooking appliance start-up Up

Zerodha’s Founder and CEO, Nithin Kamath, has invested $500,000 in consumer hardware start-up, Up, through its investment arm called Rainmatter. With this, the Bengaluru-based brand closed its pre-seed round totalling to $1.3 million.    Rainmatter is the investment and incubation vertical of Zerodha which focuses on supporting start-ups in the fintech, climate, health and wellness segments. It has invested in start-ups such as CRED, The Whole Truth, Jupiter, Frappe, JODO, among others.   Billionaire investor Tim Draper, known for his early bets in tech companies like Tesla, SpaceX, Coinbase, Hotmail, Baidu, and many more, led the previous round of investment in the start-up in October through his venture capital firm, Draper Associates.    Up is also backed by other prominent investors as well including Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain (Co-founders of Ather Energy), Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini (Co-founders of Unacademy), the Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs India.   The funds will be utilised to enhance its flagship product- delishUp- which performs chopping, stirring and other culinary functions. It has a jar installed which heats and cooks. In addition, the device also has a touch screen with unlimited cooking recipes. It is a made in India product that targets GenZ and millennials.    Up (formerly known as React Labs) was founded in 2021 by Mahek Mody and Mohit Sharma, former executives of Ather Energy and Chaayos respectively.    Commenting on his investment, Kamath said that they (Rainmatter) are passionate about supporting causes that make people healthy. “When Mahek and Mohit showed us delishUp and what they were trying to build, we really liked it. We could instantly see that this could go a long way in helping people eat healthy. We're really excited to join Up in this journey.”   The Mumbai-based company which is building smart cooking devices has tested delishUp in more than 250 homes and kitchens. The team plans to release the product in the market in December 2022.    Mody said that with this investment, they are looking to take delishUp to the consumers across the country. “Nikhil (Kamath, Co-founder of Zerodha) and the whole Zerodha-Rainmatter family are the flag bearers of health and nutrition in the Indian startup sector. Them discovering and using delishUp and following that with an investment is a massive vote of confidence,” she said.    According to market intelligence platform Tracxn, other companies working in a similar space include NOSH, Mechanical Chef, Generation Infinite, and a few others.