Euphotic Labs: Yatin Varachia on Building the Automated Future of the Indian Kitchen
Can a machine replicate the warmth and precision of a home-cooked meal? Yatin Varachia, Founder of Euphotic Labs, is betting his career on it. A hardcore "hardware techie" and graduate of the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Yatin is building Mars—an automated kitchen appliance designed to solve a very modern problem: the craving for home-cooked food in a world where we no longer have the time or willingness to cook it.
Yatin's path to food robotics was paved with complex hardware challenges. At IISc, he built motion-triggered camera traps used by the Karnataka forest department to count tigers. "That taught me the difference between a project and a product," Yatin reflects. "A product requires figuring out every small detail and anticipating challenges in the field." This engineering-first mindset stayed with him through his time at Analog Devices and his stint at a smart-backpack startup, Lumos Design.
The Problem: Migration vs. Taste Buds
India is a nation on the move. Millions migrate to new cities for work, but their taste buds remain tuned to the food they grew up with. "We migration to new towns and crave home food, but we struggle to cook it ourselves," Yatin says. "Existing food robots in China or the US focus on restaurants. But in India, our comfort food is home food. That's the gap Mars fills."
Engineering the Perfect Recipe
Cooking is fundamentally a series of heating and mixing steps, but automating it for the home is an "X complexity" problem that turned out to be "5X." Yatin and his team at Euphotic Labs spent years iterating on mechanisms that could handle the sheer variety of Indian ingredients and cooking techniques. "From the timing of adding spices to the intensity of the heat, every detail matters," he explains.
Unlike commercial food robots that prioritize speed for high volume, Mars is being built for the individual. It's about preserving the "ghar ka swad" (taste of home) through a device that fits in a modern kitchen. Yatin's strategy focuses on Indian clusters—both in India and the massive NRI market—where the cultural tie to home-cooked food remains unbroken.
The Hardware Startup Grind
Building a hardware startup in India is notoriously difficult. Financing is scarce, and manufacturing partners often don't take small players seriously. "You have to stand on top of their heads to get things done," Yatin candidly admits. Despite these hurdles, he has successfully raised seed funding and received crucial government grants, proving that there is an appetite for deep-tech innovation in the consumer appliance space.
For Yatin, the key to navigating this grind is a balanced mindset. "Setbacks happen every week. You need a good amount of positivity and a calm position to be an entrepreneur," he notes. This resilience is what allowed his small team of enthusiasts—many of whom joined right out of college—to develop two complex hardware products in just under three years.
Yatin's Lessons for Deep-Tech Founders
- Trust the Team: In a small startup, micromanagement is impossible and counterproductive. Trust your team or don't hire them.
- Start Early: Right after college is the best time to take risks. You have fewer liabilities and a higher learning capacity.
- The 3-Year Rule: Give yourself three years to achieve your goal. If you're not passionate enough to commit that time, you'll give up in six months.
- Hardware is Hard: Be prepared for complexities that are several magnitudes higher than initial estimates. Iteration is your only path forward.
The Road to Production
As Euphotic Labs moves from prototype to production, the focus is shifting toward user trials and "value engineering." Yatin is obsessed with customer feedback, conducting demos at co-working spaces and gathering pre-orders to validate the market positioning. "Hardware requires a deep understanding of whether the product is a fit before you spend massive capital on manufacturing," he explains.
Euphotic Labs Progress
- Innovation: Developed 2 complex hardware products (Mars & a B2B product) in 3 years.
- Funding: Raised seed round and secured multiple government innovation grants.
- Market Strategy: Targeting the Indian domestic and NRI markets (US/EU clusters).
About the Guest
Yatin Varachia is the Founder of Euphotic Labs. An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, Yatin is a serial innovator with a background in hardcore R&D and electronics. Before starting Euphotic Labs in 2017, he worked on tiger-tracking camera traps and smart wearable technology. He is a passionate advocate for the hardware startup ecosystem in India and believes that robotics can fundamentally improve the quality of daily life.
Euphotic Labs is a Bengaluru-based deep-tech startup specializing in kitchen automation. Its flagship product, Mars, is an intelligent cooking appliance that automates the entire cooking process for various cuisines, allowing users to enjoy fresh, healthy, and authentic home-cooked meals at the touch of a button.