Indian gaming startup ARC raises Rs 10.5 crore to advance portable gaming system ARC X1

Sumit Vishwakarma12 Sep 2026
17:59IST
New Update

Indian gaming technology startup ARC has raised Rs 10.5 crore in a pre-seed funding round led by Chimera VC and MIXI Global Investments, with Dhruv Vohra, Director at Meta APAC, also participating in the round in his personal capacity.

ARC said the funding will be used to accelerate the development and commercialisation of ARC X1, its portable gaming system, including hardware engineering, product validation and preparations for manufacturing and supply-chain operations.

The startup also plans to invest further in OWL OS, its proprietary gaming operating system, and its wider software platform. The funding will also support team expansion, go-to-market activities and partnerships across gaming, cloud, content and technology.

Founded by Jobin Joseph and Kaustubh K. Jadhav, ARC is building a platform combining hardware, software and gaming experiences.

Its first product, ARC X1, is designed to make dedicated portable gaming more accessible to Indian gamers.

The device is based on ARM architecture, uses Qualcomm technology and runs OWL OS. ARC said it supports native Android games, PC games through the company’s software stack, and cloud gaming.

Joseph said the funding will help ARC deepen its technology, accelerate product development and move the company closer to launching ARC X1.

Jadhav said “ARC was founded on a simple belief access should not determine how deeply someone gets to experience gaming.”

He added that the investment will help the company bring ARC X1 to gamers at scale.

ARC is targeting India’s large mobile-first gaming market, where the startup sees relatively low penetration of dedicated gaming hardware as an opportunity for portable gaming devices.

The startup claims more than 50,000 people have joined the ARC X1 waitlist ahead of its commercial launch.

ARC has also collaborated with Qualcomm Technologies during the product’s development and is involving gamers in early testing and feedback programmes as it refines the hardware and software before launch.

Krish Anurag of Chimera VC said the investment firm looks for companies that can “become infrastructure for the next chapter of a category”, adding that ARC fitted that investment thesis.

Tomoharu Urabe of MIXI Global Investments said India had a large and passionate gaming community and that ARC X1 could make handheld gaming more accessible.

The global portable gaming console market was valued at about $3.89 billion in 2025 which forecasts compound annual growth of 9.7% between 2026 and 2033