Hyderabad Physical AI Startup WATER Raises $2.5 Mn Seed Funding to Build Smart Adaptive Surfaces

The company will use the new funding to test and improve its technology and expand its solutions into industries such as automotive, aviation and other sectors.

“Our thesis is simple: intelligence in the physical world should upgrade the human being at the center of it,” said Teja Vinukollu, Founder and CEO of WATER. “We call that layer Bio Physical Intelligence. The body is constantly telling the surfaces it lives on what it needs, and VORTEX is the first model built to listen and respond. FLOW and CAMA are step one on the road to a world where every human being gets to be superhuman.”

“WATER represents exactly the kind of category-defining bet we look for,” said Sateesh Andra, Managing Partner at Endiya Partners. “This isn’t a smarter chair or a smarter bed. It’s a genuine attempt to build a foundational model of how the human body interacts with the surfaces it lives on, and that’s a much bigger and more durable idea. What excites us most is where this can go: the same intelligence that understands a person in a chair or a bed could eventually extend to entire adaptive environments, spaces that respond to people rather than the other way around. The team has shown real capital efficiency and real technical depth in getting here, and we’re excited to back them as they take this further.”

“Complex spaces require partners who are comfortable with complexity,” said Vinukollu. “From our very first conversation, Sateesh demonstrated that quality. He brings the right sparks to the discussion, and the Endiya team complements that energy with strong conviction and commitment.”

WATER was founded in 2024 by Teja Vinukollu and Haneesh Mourya Desu. The company is developing smart surfaces that can sense what is happening, make decisions and respond to physical interactions.

Its technology is built around VORTEX, a foundational AI model designed to understand how people interact with physical surfaces and respond accordingly.

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