Monika Monalisa By Express News Service BENGALURU: If you’ve struggled with making those perfectly-round rotis and dosas, then this machine is for you. While roti makers have been around in the market, this product by Eshwar K Vikas and Sudeep Sabat makes the dish from scratch. Vikas (28) and Sabat (28), founders of Bengaluru-based start up Mukunda Foods, have devised machines that, in addition to rotis, also make dosas and puris. It all started when Eshwar, who is fond of dosas, realised preparing crisp, paper-thin dosas found in hotels is no piece of cake. In 2011, at the end of his first year in college, he, along with his classmate from SRM University in Chennai, Sudeep Sabat, decided to build a prototype of a dosa machine. The engineer duo also delved into the idea of automation of food when they tried to increase the productivity of the kitchen through the engineering skills. That’s when they came up with the first table top dosamatic. “The idea behind the products, Dosamatic and Doughbot, was to ensure that dosas and rotis can be made in a hassle-free manner,” says Vikas about the company has was founded in 2012 in Bommanahalli. At present, they have 10 different types of machines which are used in around 2,000 locations around the globe, with each machine priced around Rs 2 lakh. “In college we used to participate in many tech fests and our dosamatic idea won the first prize in most of them. We put the cash prizes we won over the years into the creation of the dosa machine,” says Sabat. And much to their surprise, the first batch of the dosamatic was sold to a restaurant in Rishikesh in 2014. With this initial push, the product and company gained momentum, and soon the founders saw investment coming their way. The first investment of ` 1 crore came from Indian Angel Network. Now, with a valuation of Rs 150 crore, they are aiming to penetrate into European and American market more agressively. Even though the company started as a small setup with three employees, their idea has been their USP has kept them going. The founders feel their best achievement has been the deal with DRDO, which helps in feeding the soldiers in Siachen and on INS Jyoti. “We feel a sense of satisfaction for being able to help soldiers. They live in extreme climates and at those times the roti machine comes in handy,” Vikas says. Currently working on a machine to make tea, Vikas says, “The tea machine is designed to make 80,000 types of tea. It is completely AI-driven, and customers can customise their tea on the tab which all the details.” The products is being created in association with Chaayos, and is already in some stores. “We are still working on ironing out the glitches,” says Vikas. In addition, they are aiming for a cloud kitchen (a takeaway outlet that provides no dine-in facility). “We plan to deploy 10,000 machines in the next two years,” says Vikas, adding that they plan to double the number of employees (the current staff strength is 100) by the end of the year in line with their expansion plans.

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