How RoshAi Is Driving Autonomy In Ports And Mining Operations

Severe driver shortage is an issue not just in population-starved countries like the US, but also those like India, which has no census-shortage, but is still one of the trend’s biggest victims. Despite being the world’s most populous country, India faces a shortage of 22 lakh skilled drivers according to the World Bank.

Younger, digital-native generations view the trucking industry with disdain, opting for less back-breaking, stable and respectable jobs, preferably with set working hours, benefits and pay.

But an idle truck is a depleting asset, and the shortage is driving up shipment costs and significant delays in freight transport.

This is the problem identified by the founder of RoshAi during the covid pandemic, when driver shortages were exacerbated by lockdown-induced migrations. “I thought to myself, what am I doing automating cars in my backyard when this is the problem my technology is most suitable for right now,” the startup’s cofounder and CEO Roshy John told Inc42.

Launched in 2021, the startup is a brainchild of John and Rajaram Moorth, who after almost a decade of pouring their life savings into researching and developing autonomous vehicle technology and developing prototypes starting from Tata Nanos to BMWs and large trucks, identified the opportunity to launch in the industrial automation space.

John met his cofounder and RoshAi CTO Moorthy during his stint at Wipro, and tagged along for the entire ride before RoshAi was finally incorporated five years ago.

“I was already working on the prototype for a decade and in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic halted shipping lines. The driver shortage led to a eureka moment for us and we realise the abundant use cases of driverless vehicles beyond commuting,” John told Inc42.

Fast forward five years, what started out as a backyard project has now turned into a complete autonomous fleet transformation startup courting domestic and international clients alike.

RoshAi currently offers retrofit-ready hardware paired with AI software and a cloud-based fleet management system. Together, these enable Level 4 autonomous driving for large mining vehicles, boats and trucks operating in industrial environments.

As John explains this, five trucks require 15 drivers when accounting for round the clock operations. Fleet owners can instead subscribe to the RoshAi autonomous stack, retrofit existing ICE and electric vehicles with driverless technology. This allows companies to automate fleets without buying new vehicles while reducing driver-related costs and risks.

Beyond transport, it is also expanding into precision manufacturing, especially electronics, where its AI software automates repetitive tasks using data trained over years.

“If you amortise my technology’s cost for five years, it is cheaper than putting a driver in India. In any case, none of these younger generations want to take commercial vehicle driving as an occupation, not just in India but globally,” added John.

So far, RoshAi has raised $3.4 Mn in funding, most recently raking in $2.4 Mn in a round led by IAN Alpha Fund. Its other backers include Ev2 Ventures, Caret Capital and Thinkuvate. It is working with nine large OEM’s and the client list includes large manufacturing companies in countries such as the US and Sweden.

Building The First Prototype With Tata Nano

It was in 2013 when John was returning home late at night from the airport, the cab driver fell asleep and he had to take the wheel instead.

“That’s when I thought that I had 43 patents and a PhD in robotics. As a scientist, I was doing something for the international community, but even Indians were risking their lives to earn some extra money,” John recalled.

But the road was not easy. He had a full time job at Wipro and the only reference he had at the time was the DARPA Grand Challenge in the US, which was a series of competitions held between 2004-07 to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicle technology.

He went through the research papers published by the Stanford team that won the competition in 2005 and started working on a prototype in his garage using his personal savings, a TATA Nano and royalty money received from patents.

“I found the Tata Nano to be the ideal candidate because it had a rear engine. The actuation systems to turn the steering up and pull or push the pedal could be placed in the front because there was no engine out there. It was a gold standard back then for autonomous vehicle concepts,” he remarked.

Another challenge was to source the required parts to build the prototype as many were not available in India. For instance, he imported LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors from Germany back in 2012 because such hardware was not yet available in India.

LiDar is an active remote sensing technology that uses pulsed laser light to measure distances to objects, creating precise 3D, high-resolution models of the environment. They are essential for autonomous vehicles, perched atop their rooftops, to transmit data to the ML software for precise decision making.

“When I would take out my retrofitted Tata Nano for a spin, many people wondered whether I was taking pictures of them from the cameras on the cars. This prompted me to seek help from the Kerala Police, which allotted me test tracks later within Kochi’s Infopark premises,” he chuckled.

Later, the same prototype was extended to ports, airports, and yards’ vehicle fleets in 2020-2021 for capturing data and running test trials on where the final products are used. “It is a continuous process and we will continue working with fleet owners to deploy the technology on trucks for data collection and deployment needs,” said John.

Refining The Go-To-Market Strategy

Despite challenges in sourcing specialised hardware components, RoshAi is pushing to align with India’s Make in India ambitions. The startup procures hardware through select contract manufacturers in Bengaluru, while designing and testing all its systems in-house. Most components—excluding certain sensors—are sourced domestically, though some specialised parts are imported from Taiwan and the United States.

Their go to market strategy involves reaching out to customers directly through OEMs like Ashok Leyland, which is one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in India. This legitimises the technology and also assures fleet owners that the manufacturers are on board with the transformation. It also upgrades the existing hardware through its drive by wire systems rather than hacking into the vehicles systems which can annul warranties provided by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), which also give them trust in the ecosystem.

As for revenue streams, selling hardware is where most of the margins come from, while the subscription-based SaaS platform acts as a recurring income generating add on. Additionally, it operates a large consulting vertical, which helps customers in understanding and deploying the technology.

“There is a structured business problem that we are trying to solve. It’s not about making a car go from point A to point B. I oversaw it in 2010 itself. But, it’s more about how you can sell and make money from this technology. Not many similar startups in India have cracked it yet,” John said.”

The Road Ahead

Despite being one of the early movers in terms of autonomous vehicle research and prototyping, today RoshAi is not the only player in the space. In the last few years, startups such as Flux Auto, Minus Zero and Flo Mobility have also taken an edge in the similar segment albeit with different kinds of use-cases in mind.

However, John likes to think of RoshAi as less of a driverless car company and more like an engineering pioneer akin to Bosch which operates in multiple verticals. From the opportunity perspective, he believes India is just a test bed being a cost conscious market and will mature to accept autonomous driving in maybe a decade.

“My major market is abroad, where there is a huge requirement for trucks and a dearth of drivers,” John said, adding that the startup is courting clients in the Middle East, South America and Europe as well.

The founders are aiming to close the current financial year at an operating revenue of ₹50 Cr, up from the ₹15 Cr it generated in FY26.

Going forward, the startup will also focus on protecting its inventions before scaling the business further, for which it has brought in patent partners and legal firms. Additionally, it will continue to focus on data gathering and capturing to further train its models.

“Our long-term vision is to be the global leader in terms of autonomy and industry systems using AI-based perception. Because we have the ability and the agility to deploy these technologies. We also want to become more like a data-oriented company in different industries and leverage the millions of data points we have captured over the years,” John said.

Even as the autonomous vehicle space is getting crowded in India, RoshAi hopes to differentiate itself through its retrofit stack, AI capabilities and a decade of prototyping the technology.

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