BRS working president K. T. Rama Rao on Friday, 10 July 2026 shared that he met Aarav Garg, a Hyderabad-based young innovator and co-founder of AI wearable startup Omi, calling the reunion inspiring and wishing the team greater success ahead.

Context

Rama Rao noted that he first met Aarav Garg in 2022, when Garg was 16 years old and had already built an early product that he demonstrated to the then-minister. The latest meeting marked a visible leap: Garg has since co-founded Omi, a startup building AI wearable devices positioned as a 'second brain' for users.

Omi has reportedly raised around $3 million in funding from investors including Tim Draper and Dropbox Ventures, and has sold more than 25,000 devices. The startup has also drawn coverage from globally recognised business and technology publications.

Policy Backdrop

Rama Rao's engagement with young tech founders is consistent with the ecosystem he helped build during his tenure as Telangana's Minister for IT, Industries and Municipal Administration from 2014 to 2023. Under his watch, the state launched the Telangana Startup Policy 2015 and established T-Hub, one of India's largest startup incubators, with an explicit focus on nurturing early-stage hardware and deep-tech ventures.

Hyderabad has since emerged as a significant node for AI and hardware startups, with international seed capital increasingly flowing into founders based in the city. The involvement of investors such as Tim Draper — a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist — and Dropbox Ventures in an India-origin AI hardware startup reflects a broader trend of global early-stage interest in Indian deep-tech.

Stakeholders and Impact

For young innovators in Telangana and across India, Omi's trajectory — from a 16-year-old's prototype to an internationally funded AI wearable company — serves as a tangible reference point. The startup's reported sale of more than 25,000 devices suggests early product-market traction beyond a proof-of-concept stage.

State-level leaders spotlighting such successes also serve a policy signalling function: they reinforce narratives around indigenous AI capability and position their home states as credible startup destinations. For BRS as a party now in opposition in Telangana, highlighting a Hyderabad-origin global success story allows Rama Rao to draw continuity between past policy investments and present outcomes.

What's Next

The AI wearables segment globally is attracting significant investor and consumer attention, and Omi's next milestones — further funding rounds, manufacturing scale-up, or expanded device lines — will be closely watched by the Indian startup community. Rama Rao's public endorsement adds political and reputational visibility to the startup at a moment when Indian AI hardware ventures are seeking both domestic and international credibility.

Whether Aarav Garg and Omi can convert early traction into sustained growth will be the real test, but the combination of Silicon Valley backing, a Hyderabad base, and growing product sales places the startup among the more watched names in India's emerging AI wearable space.