ARC Raises $1.2M for Indian Gaming Handheld ARC X1

Bengaluru-based ARC has secured a significant ₹10.5 crore (approximately $1.2 million) in pre-seed funding to develop its ambitious gaming handheld, the ARC X1. The round was spearheaded by prominent venture capital firms Chimera VC and MIXI Global Investments, with a personal investment from Dhruv Vohra, a director at Meta in Asia Pacific. This capital injection signals a bold move into India's burgeoning hardware sector, a space traditionally dominated by software and gaming platforms.

The funding is earmarked for critical stages of product development, including industrial design, ARM chip integration, manufacturing tooling, and supply chain establishment. ARC is also investing heavily in its proprietary operating system, OWL OS, which is built on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). This dual focus on both hardware and a custom OS at such an early stage highlights the company's strategy to differentiate itself in a market where dedicated gaming devices remain largely inaccessible to a vast Indian audience.

The ARC X1 aims to bridge the gap for Indian gamers by offering a portable system capable of running native Android titles and cloud gaming services. A key technological challenge ARC is tackling is enabling PC game compatibility on its ARM-based architecture, a feat that typically requires significant performance translation. The success of this feature will be pivotal in determining whether the device offers a compelling library of existing PC games or merely an enhanced mobile gaming experience.

Co-founder Kaustubh K. Jadhav emphasized the market opportunity, stating, "India has built one of the world's largest communities of gamers, yet dedicated gaming hardware remains inaccessible to a large part of that audience. This funding allows us to take ARC X1 from an ambitious engineering challenge to a product we can bring to gamers at scale." The company reports over 50,000 waitlist sign-ups, indicating strong initial interest from potential consumers.

The global portable gaming console market was valued at approximately $3.89 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of roughly 9.7% through 2033. ARC's strategy is specifically tailored to India's unique gaming ecosystem, characterized by a massive mobile-first player base and low penetration of dedicated gaming hardware. Unlike the substantial investments seen in Indian gaming software and platforms like WinZO and Dream11, ARC's venture into hardware manufacturing represents a distinct and potentially high-reward path.

Krish Anurag, Managing Partner at Chimera VC, expressed enthusiasm for the team's holistic approach: "What excites us is that the team is not approaching this as a hardware company building another handheld. They are thinking about the entire gaming experience: silicon, hardware, operating system, developer and content ecosystem, and ultimately how a new generation of players accesses games." The successful launch of the ARC X1 could establish a precedent for domestically developed gaming hardware in India, moving beyond imported or white-label solutions.