Hyderabad-based biophysical AI company WATER has raised $2.5 million in a seed funding round led by early-stage venture capital firm Endiya Partners. The round also saw participation from former badminton coach Pullela Gopichand, Rohit Chennamaneni, Nandan Reddy and other angel investors.
The company plans to use the fresh capital for technical validation as it works towards developing an intelligence layer for adaptive surfaces. WATER believes the technology could eventually find applications across automotive, aviation and other sectors.
Building AI for Physical Environments
Founded in 2024 by Teja Vinukollu and Haneesh Mourya Desu, WATER is developing adaptive physical surfaces that can sense and respond to how people interact with their surroundings.
The startup’s technology is built around VORTEX, its foundational model designed to understand interactions between the human body and the physical environment.
WATER currently has two products, FLOW and CAMA. The FLOW chair is designed to understand posture, movement and load during seated interaction, while the CAMA bed focuses on sleep, recovery and respiration.
The products combine sensing, decision-making and physical actuation to respond to the human body in real time.
Rather than treating furniture as a static object, WATER is working to make physical surfaces more responsive to individual users and their changing needs.
Expanding Beyond Chairs and Beds
The company plans to take its underlying technology beyond chairs and beds and develop adaptive systems for other physical environments.
This could allow surfaces and physical systems to respond dynamically to individual requirements, creating potential applications in sectors such as automotive and aviation.
The latest funding will primarily support the technical validation of this technology as WATER works towards building a broader platform for adaptive intelligent surfaces.
Growing Interest in Physical AI
WATER’s funding comes at a time when India’s Physical AI and deeptech ecosystem is attracting increasing investor interest. While adaptive intelligent surfaces remain an early-stage category in India, startups are increasingly exploring technologies that allow physical systems to sense their surroundings, make decisions and respond autonomously.
Recently, Invisel raised Rs 4 crore in a funding round led by IAN Angel Fund. Bengaluru-based Mowito secured $3 million in pre-seed funding to develop Physical AI foundation models for industrial robots.
Flo Mobility also raised $2.5 million in a pre-Series A round to scale its Physical AI-powered autonomous solutions for construction. Meanwhile, Yaanendriya secured Rs 15 crore to develop sensing, navigation and autonomous-control technologies for robotics and aerospace.
With its focus on adaptive surfaces and human-machine interaction, WATER is looking to build another layer of the emerging Physical AI ecosystem, starting with everyday physical environments and potentially expanding into larger industrial applications.
-By Shivani Solanki
