Matdun: Pioneering Super Smart Home AI
Suresh Matha
Founder & CEO
The company's AI powered smart home technology solutions perform tasks based on their understanding of your likes and dislikes and are designed to ensure higher standards of safety and security that the consumers have never witnessed before. Moreover, Matdun's comprehensive platform comes with the built-in ability to conveniently connect with other devices within its ecosystem, providing the nextgen experience. With its next generation products with complex underlying infrastructures and investor friendly, exceptional business roadmap, it's no wonder the company had two rounds of financial influx. Under the aegis of Suresh Matha(Founder & CEO, Matdun), the bright minded Matdunians (or MDs as they call each other) have just started their anecdote. We recently got to talking with Suresh who walked us through the company's latest endeavors. Let's get right to it.
What Ignited The Spark In You ToVenture Into The Home Automation Segment With Matdun?
I strongly believe in the power of technology and its ability to create widespread impact I dream of building a technology that can improve everyday life. Having been a tech professional all my life, I have been fascinated by the power of AI and its potential. But at the moment, there is no company that is focusing in this niche area to bridge the gap created by the existing smart products and the lack of truly personalized experience. I indeed perceived this challenge as a business opportunity.
Matdun is the fruition of that dream, this is an innovative tech company that is using proprietary tech to enhance how we are interacting with our spaces.
Working on solving new problems with every implementation in the past helped me look at the problems in a different way. Coming up with a strategy to solve a problem within aggressive deadlines has always been one of my major strengths. I love to spend time with my kids and family a lot. This has helped me understand the risks and gaps in the current residential market from a security services/products point of view as well.
What Were The Challenges That You Faced During The Establishment Of The Company And How Did You Overcome Them?
Challenges were in fact multifaceted, ranging from building a team to selling the dream, having the right shareholders, the first startup experience, and Tech competency.
[Team]You would agree that one is only as good as his/her team, and we have been fortunate to have a great team right from the inception. We have always stressed to get the mindset right, and as a founder, it's my job to communicate the vision and get everyone to believe in the same dream. We have managed to attract the best minds in the business, we hire professionals from the best institutes such as the IIT's, the IIMs and other tech schools and they bring in the right passion and enthusiasm to the company. Additionally, we have some of the biggest names in the tech world as our advisors and they bring in their wealth of experience and network to the company as
well. Together it's a great combination and we are sure that it will play out well for us. But getting that in place did take a great deal of time,effort and sacrifice.
[Right Shareholders] We have had two rounds of capital infusion and I must say we have had a few great investors who have helped us in pursuing our vision. They have been instrumental in helping us have the kind of journey that we have had so far. Of late, we are garnering tremendous investor interest and we are sure that we will be able to achieve our projections.
[First Startup Experience] Well, while this is not new for me, but yes, every new venture is a new journey that comes with its own learnings. Matdun's story has been a fascinating one, and as a startup founder, you have to look at all the aspects of the company practically. I have understood the importance of getting the right team in place, more than the college names and tech competency. Now, I care about the right mindset and perspective. I have also learnt how important it is to build the right projection for your company early on. I am a big endorser of branding and I am happy that we have been able to get that right. On the tech front, we have been creating solutions that are rather revolutionary, one of a kind, and that was another great learning experience. So yes, I have had my hands full, but the experience has been truly phenomenal.
[Selling the Dream] Sharing the vision is the most important aspect of a CEO's job. In our case, it was all the more important as we were trying to do something new. When you don't have a precedence, you need to rely on your imagination and inherent ability. Everyone starts believing in your dream, only if you believe in it strongly. I think we have been able to do a decent job here, all our team members, partners, advisors and investors have been our endorsers and the Matdun story is only getting stronger with time. Getting every one on board the first time was a big task, and I am continuing to do that even now.
[Tech Competency] For us, tech is at the heart of everything we do. We always wanted to give the consumer a new reason to engage and a new benchmark, and therefore, we had to start where most offerings stopped. This means that we built our own software and hardware. It also meant that we were not taking the easy route, as long hours, errors, upgradation, and rework were all part of the game. I call it the Planning, Un Planning and RePlanning approach. We are redefining AI and want to make it easy for consumers to enjoy the benefits of it with a never like-before convenience. That's what we mean when we say taking AI to daily life.
We are now ready with our first offering and it is in line with what we had envisaged. So very soon the world will get to experience the product and I can assure you that it will be worth the wait. But this journey, as you can imagine, has not been easy and the product experience is only going to increase with time.
Home Automation Is Increasingly Becoming A Populous Industry. Where Is Matdun Labs India Currently Positioned In This Domain?
In a market that is all about 'smart solutions', we are starting a few notches above this status quo. For us, smart is passé. We are on a mission to build a platform that is super and is about super devices that have enhanced capability, and are centered around the consumer needs and wants. It's the dawn of a new era and we are at the forefront of this transition.
We are exploring new possibilities with AI and giving it a whole new interpretation; we call it HOME AI (Trademark). We are on a mission to strengthen human tech possibi lities by allowing consumers to enjoy
[Right Shareholders] We have had two rounds of capital infusion and I must say we have had a few great investors who have helped us in pursuing our vision. They have been instrumental in helping us have the kind of journey that we have had so far. Of late, we are garnering tremendous investor interest and we are sure that we will be able to achieve our projections.
With tech and innovation being our core, we develop products that can harness the power of AI to create effective one-of-a-kind space-tech solutions
[First Startup Experience] Well, while this is not new for me, but yes, every new venture is a new journey that comes with its own learnings. Matdun's story has been a fascinating one, and as a startup founder, you have to look at all the aspects of the company practically. I have understood the importance of getting the right team in place, more than the college names and tech competency. Now, I care about the right mindset and perspective. I have also learnt how important it is to build the right projection for your company early on. I am a big endorser of branding and I am happy that we have been able to get that right. On the tech front, we have been creating solutions that are rather revolutionary, one of a kind, and that was another great learning experience. So yes, I have had my hands full, but the experience has been truly phenomenal.
[Selling the Dream] Sharing the vision is the most important aspect of a CEO's job. In our case, it was all the more important as we were trying to do something new. When you don't have a precedence, you need to rely on your imagination and inherent ability. Everyone starts believing in your dream, only if you believe in it strongly. I think we have been able to do a decent job here, all our team members, partners, advisors and investors have been our endorsers and the Matdun story is only getting stronger with time. Getting every one on board the first time was a big task, and I am continuing to do that even now.
[Tech Competency] For us, tech is at the heart of everything we do. We always wanted to give the consumer a new reason to engage and a new benchmark, and therefore, we had to start where most offerings stopped. This means that we built our own software and hardware. It also meant that we were not taking the easy route, as long hours, errors, upgradation, and rework were all part of the game. I call it the Planning, Un Planning and RePlanning approach. We are redefining AI and want to make it easy for consumers to enjoy the benefits of it with a never like-before convenience. That's what we mean when we say taking AI to daily life.
We are now ready with our first offering and it is in line with what we had envisaged. So very soon the world will get to experience the product and I can assure you that it will be worth the wait. But this journey, as you can imagine, has not been easy and the product experience is only going to increase with time.
Home Automation Is Increasingly Becoming A Populous Industry. Where Is Matdun Labs India Currently Positioned In This Domain?
In a market that is all about 'smart solutions', we are starting a few notches above this status quo. For us, smart is passé. We are on a mission to build a platform that is super and is about super devices that have enhanced capability, and are centered around the consumer needs and wants. It's the dawn of a new era and we are at the forefront of this transition.
We are exploring new possibilities with AI and giving it a whole new interpretation; we call it HOME AI (Trademark). We are on a mission to strengthen human tech possibi lities by allowing consumers to enjoy
intelligent spaces that come with enhanced potential.
We are targeting a niche market and want to be relevant to lifestyle conscious tech savvy customers. We are majorly targeting the early adopters, especially in the North American market. In most cases, we are redefining the category and in fact in some cases we will be even creating one.
What Makes Your Products Unique?
We are a Consumer Electronics Company and we operate with that perspective. With tech and innovation being our core we develop products that can harness the power of AI to create effective one-of-a-kind space tech solutions.
In the process, we are sensitive to user privacy and hold it with utmost regard, and therefore have invested heavily in proprietary tech. Hence, we offer complete privacy protection and peace of mind. We place the customer right at the center of our product development process and a lot of it is in fact prompted by what they seek and need. This ensures that our products come with a built in relevance. We have further advanced our proposition by power optimum solutions, which ensure optimum energy consumption and allow functioning of critical functions even with low power. This elevated product experience is complemented by our superior seamless customer service.This is fundamental to our vision of being a customer centric company.
In a nutshell, it is essentially about every thing from resilient technology to computer vision-based ‘super'solutions that increase value proposition over time and bench marking the quality of products and services.
How Do You Promote Constant Knowledge Acquisition And Upgradation Within The Organization? Also, What Are The Technology Areas That You Are Planning To Invest In?
Matdun is like a research lab, and hence is also a knowledge hub. We are lucky to have a team of self motivated folks who are passionate about the field. We encourage learning at every stage, be it connecting with subject matter experts or fellow techies. We have our advisors who are stalwarts in their areas who ensure that we are ahead of the dynamic trends in the tech world. At Matdun knowledge is a free flowing and continuous affair. We are working towards creating a suitable work culture one that can act as an incubator of ideas and strengthen our imagination.
Subscription to industry journals, reports and research papers,training and workshops are all going to be an integral part of our calendar as we move forward. We also have relationships with industry bodies and academic institutions and they also add to our knowledge acquisition process. Going forward, our area of interest is going to be around(i)Computer Vision,(ii) Machine to Human interaction, and (iii) Personalized solutions powered by AI.
Currently, What Are Some Of The Novel Innovations That You Are Working On?
We are on our way to create a tech platform that will create new possibi lities within the space-tech domain. We want to make our spaces intelligent and responsive to enhance the interaction between spaces and humans so that we can create convenient and consistent experiences
We are working on multiple things, giving what is popularly known as smart tech a new benchmark. We call it super. The first Super Device is an AI powered Door lock that uses Deep Neural Networks and 3D Facial Recognition to unlock using User’s Face, giving you total control of your house. But this is just the beginning; there is a lot that is being developed using our custom Home AI (Trademark) platform and you will see them soon.
Suresh Matha, Founder & CEO, Matdun
Suresh graduated from Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT) with Bachelors in Information Technology. He boasts an experience of working in the US for more than a decade as an Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation Consultant for industry leaders on projects accounting to more than $80 million implementations.
Offices:India and Canada
We are targeting a niche market and want to be relevant to lifestyle conscious tech savvy customers. We are majorly targeting the early adopters, especially in the North American market. In most cases, we are redefining the category and in fact in some cases we will be even creating one.
What Makes Your Products Unique?
We are a Consumer Electronics Company and we operate with that perspective. With tech and innovation being our core we develop products that can harness the power of AI to create effective one-of-a-kind space tech solutions.
In the process, we are sensitive to user privacy and hold it with utmost regard, and therefore have invested heavily in proprietary tech. Hence, we offer complete privacy protection and peace of mind. We place the customer right at the center of our product development process and a lot of it is in fact prompted by what they seek and need. This ensures that our products come with a built in relevance. We have further advanced our proposition by power optimum solutions, which ensure optimum energy consumption and allow functioning of critical functions even with low power. This elevated product experience is complemented by our superior seamless customer service.This is fundamental to our vision of being a customer centric company.
In a nutshell, it is essentially about every thing from resilient technology to computer vision-based ‘super'solutions that increase value proposition over time and bench marking the quality of products and services.
How Do You Promote Constant Knowledge Acquisition And Upgradation Within The Organization? Also, What Are The Technology Areas That You Are Planning To Invest In?
Matdun is like a research lab, and hence is also a knowledge hub. We are lucky to have a team of self motivated folks who are passionate about the field. We encourage learning at every stage, be it connecting with subject matter experts or fellow techies. We have our advisors who are stalwarts in their areas who ensure that we are ahead of the dynamic trends in the tech world. At Matdun knowledge is a free flowing and continuous affair. We are working towards creating a suitable work culture one that can act as an incubator of ideas and strengthen our imagination.
Subscription to industry journals, reports and research papers,training and workshops are all going to be an integral part of our calendar as we move forward. We also have relationships with industry bodies and academic institutions and they also add to our knowledge acquisition process. Going forward, our area of interest is going to be around(i)Computer Vision,(ii) Machine to Human interaction, and (iii) Personalized solutions powered by AI.
Currently, What Are Some Of The Novel Innovations That You Are Working On?
We are on our way to create a tech platform that will create new possibi lities within the space-tech domain. We want to make our spaces intelligent and responsive to enhance the interaction between spaces and humans so that we can create convenient and consistent experiences
We are working on multiple things, giving what is popularly known as smart tech a new benchmark. We call it super. The first Super Device is an AI powered Door lock that uses Deep Neural Networks and 3D Facial Recognition to unlock using User’s Face, giving you total control of your house. But this is just the beginning; there is a lot that is being developed using our custom Home AI (Trademark) platform and you will see them soon.
Suresh Matha, Founder & CEO, Matdun
Suresh graduated from Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT) with Bachelors in Information Technology. He boasts an experience of working in the US for more than a decade as an Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation Consultant for industry leaders on projects accounting to more than $80 million implementations.
Offices:India and Canada