For home makers, here’s some good news. Mukunda Foods, which makes automatic dosa makers for hotels and large establishments, is planning to launch a table-top version for people at home.

The Bangalore based startup will soon make a fully automated, table top dosa-making machine that churns out 1 dosa a minute. The product is still in the making so it might be a while before it reaches you. But we think this is something to really look forward to.

Dosamatic was originally created to solve three problems that large hotel chains face – tackling the labour problem, ensuring standardisation of food being served across diners and tackling the rising labour costs. While it doesn’t have a solution to all the problems, the startup has just the answer to solve problems relating to the ubiquitous South Indian dosa.

Mukunda Foods is a startup founded by 2 SRM University engineering graduates that seeks to automate the food process for Indian foods. They began the step with Dosamatic – a machine that guarantees a restaurant anywhere between 100-200 dosas a day.

“Dosas cost anywhere between Rs 25-50 in a place like Bangalore or Chennai or Hyderabad. But if you go to Delhi, you might have to spend Rs 80-120 for the same thing. But a product like a burger, the cost remains the same no matter where you go. The cost for Indian food products are not standardised as they are handmade and have no automation,” says Eashwar Vikas, CEO and co-founder at Dosamatic, on how the two came up with the idea.

The company feels that once Dosamatic is more widely accepted, they can move into the automation of other Indian food products.

Dosamatic: Product Development

The initial conceptualisation of Dosamatic began in 2011, when the two were still in college in Chennai. They had initially designed a product that was 1×1 metre long, and has now brought down the size to that of a microwave oven.

Dosamatic works at the touch of a button, and also has different thickness at which the batter can be spread to make dosas. Thickness levels vary from 1 mm to 6 mm and has a feature to control the thickness.

“The machine can make 1 dosa a minute, and we have made 1 lakh dosas so far with it,” says Eashwar.

Dosamatic is currently being used by 30 restaurants across Bangalore and one in Coimbatore. Restaurant chain Konark, and Coimbatore based Annapurna Hotels are among these.

“We have over a 1000 enquiries about the product currently only from Bangalore. Once an order is placed, we will take about 3 months to deliver it,” says Eashwar.

The Dosamatic retails for Rs 1 lakh per piece and the company claims that a restaurateur will receive RoI within 5 months of employing the device. Eashwar says that one machine would suffice for a restaurant depending on its size.

Expansion

Mukunda Foods was initially bootstrapped by the founders Eashwar Vikas and Sudeep Sabat with Rs 10-12 lakhs. The company had recently raised investment from the IAN, with whom they were incubated.

The company plans on using the round of funding received for the year to set up its own assembly unit in Bangalore, developing other similar products and opening Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs) across the city.

“The QSRs serving dosas will be started across IT campuses within the city, and will be operational by March 2014,” explains Eashwar.

With the opening of the QSRs, Mukunda Foods hopes to take a small step in branching out its services across the globe.

“We already have confirmed orders from Australia, London and USA, and enquiries from more than 16 countries. We are making sure that the machine is at international standards,” says Eashwar.

A device similar to the Dosamatic is the Rotimatic by Singapore based startup Zimplistic PTE, which automates roti-making for home use. Rotimatic is yet to ship a finished product. Dosamatic hopes to make Rs 30 lakh in revenues this fiscal year.