The Rise of Robotics: India’s Journey in Warehouse Automation, ETEntrepreneur

The work is simple: pick an object from one place and place it in another.

Who’d have thought then that it will be so difficult to automate these using robots?

According to Jagga Raju, co-founder at Perceptyne, the startup had to rethink things from the ground up to build robots that are intelligent enough to operate in dynamic industrial environments.

“Existing robots are largely position-driven and require highly controlled environments. We started Perceptyne to fundamentally rethink robotics from the hardware layer itself,” he said.

In fact, the Hyderabad-based startup said it has built the entire robot themselves, right from the actuators and control systems to the software.

“Instead of relying only on precision hardware, we combine vision, force sensing and AI so robots can adapt to changing conditions. This makes automation more flexible, faster to deploy and significantly cheaper,” said Raju.

But Perceptyne is hardly the only company building robots from India. ETEntrepreneur spoke to at least two other robotics startups, namely, Unbox Robotics and Addverb, both building in the warehouse automation space.

What, then, has kept the space from really taking off?

If Tracxn data is to be believed, a mere $42.1 million worth of funding went into robotics startups in the first half of 2026. The word ‘mere’ here is in reference to the overall funding that Indian startups received during the same period, which was $7.2 billion.

In percentage terms, that’s less than one per cent.

While other deeptech categories in India have seen increased investor interest in recent years, owing to geopolitics and subsequent policy changes, robotics is yet to have its moment.

Raju agrees. “The biggest challenge is the lack of risk capital. In China, governments and large corporations actively invest in robotics. In the US, venture capital plays that role. India has neither at sufficient scale. Most investors still evaluate robotics companies using SaaS metrics, which isn’t appropriate for deeptech businesses,” he said.

Endiya Partners, an investor in Perceptyne, while agreeing with the fact that there is not enough patient capital for robotics startups, also said that the funnel of investable opportunities in the space is also limited.

What makes warehouse automation so attractive?

According to both Addverb and Unbox, warehouses are where there are lowest barriers to entry for smaller companies.

“Warehousing and logistics gives you everything a young robotics company needs: a controlled indoor environment, well-defined tasks, and — crucially — a buyer who can point to a line on their P&L and tell you exactly what your robot is worth to them,” said Pramod Ghadge, co-founder at Unbox Robotics.

In fact, successful deployments at warehouses, enterprises have begun to increase their use of robotics across the board as well.

“With warehouse deployments proving successful, enterprises have begun to increase their use of robotics in manufacturing, healthcare, airports, retail, and defence,” said Bir Singh, co-founder at Addverb. “This transformation is very evident in our own experience at Addverb. We started with warehouse automation and have steadily expanded into AI-led robotics for multiple industries, which is where we believe the market is headed.”

But beyond being safe, it also happens to be one of the fastest growing commercial opportunities for robotics globally. According to IMARC, the Indian warehouse automation market was valued at $712.9 million in 2024, projected to grow to $2.6 billion by 2033.

“The honest answer is that it’s where the willingness to pay is real and the deployment model is repeatable,” said Ghadge.

Is it even globally competitive?

In terms of deployments, an International Federation of Robotics report found China to be responsible for more than half of global deployments in 2024, followed by Japan and the US.

India, while ranked 6th overall, accounted for less than one per cent of all deployments.

“India has only around seven industrial robots per 10,000 workers. The global average is about 162. China is close to 400, the US around 260, and countries like Japan and South Korea approach 1,000. That shows how much room India has to grow,” said Raju.

China, Japan and the US, all mature markets for deployments, are driven by government incentives and funding.

But things are looking rosier domestically as well, with the recent research, development and innovation (RDI) fund at ₹1 lakh crore being believed to be a shot in the arm. The RDI fund is a government of India initiative designed to catalyze private sector investment in deeptech such as quantum computing, robotics, among others.

Ghadge, however, believes that the idea that India can only do software and has to import all its hardware is “outdated”.

“We can design hardware systems and with the manufacturing push now underway, we can increasingly build here too…my strategy isn’t ‘concede hardware, win on software’. It’s full-stack: design in India, manufacture in India where it makes sense, and pair that with a genuinely superior intelligence layer. That combination is what’s hard to copy,” he said.

Singh believes physical AI is marking a pivotal moment in India’s robotics trajectory.

“The country already boasts a solid base in AI, software, engineering skills, and a burgeoning manufacturing sector. Sustained investment in robotics R&D, increased industry-academy partnership, and more localisation of key technologies will all be key factors in the next phase,” he said.

Raju goes so far as to suggest that when Chinese products are exported, Perceptyne is competitive on pricing. “More importantly, we sell complete automation solutions rather than just robotic arms, so we compete on capability and deployment outcomes as well,” he said.

Cost, however, is not where India needs to compete either, said Ghadge.

“India doesn’t need to become a cheaper China — it needs to be a place that designs, builds and thinks better, and that’s genuinely within reach,” he said.

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