- CWD is a business built on wireless connectivity - the name itself stands for “Connected Wireless Devices” - and it has grown from a 2016 start-up into a publicly listed original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that designs, makes and sells the electronics and software that power other companies’ products. The company was ideated by one co-founder, aided by the other, who brought decades of experience from Reliance Communications, Airtel and Sony Ericsson, and it was listed on the BSE’s SME platform in 2021. Its recurring approach is to act as a behind-the-scenes design-and-manufacturing partner for large Indian enterprises - fintech platforms, telecom operators and utilities - building connected devices that those customers then distribute under their own brands.
Business segments
Two engines at different stages - a national-scale fintech hardware platform that is the company’s backbone, and a collection of industrial IoT bets being built on the same manufacturing and R&D foundation.
1. Fintech sound boxes: India’s payment-confirmation factory
CWD is India’s leading manufacturer of UPI payment sound boxes, and it is turning that hardware dominance into a recurring software and advertising business.
- The device that speaks a payment - a sound box is a low-cost speaker that announces when a digital payment has been made, so a shopkeeper who cannot read or write still knows the money has arrived; CWD makes them in 2G, 4G and Wi-Fi versions and sells to fintech giants like PhonePe and Bajaj Finance.
- Scale that is hard to replicate - the company’s daily production capacity has tripled to 15,000 units with the opening of a new factory, and monthly capacity is rising from roughly 1.5 lakh to 2.5 lakh units, giving it the muscle to serve a market where sound-box deployment in India hit 27 million units in FY25 and is projected to double by 2030.
- From box to platform - CWD has built an industry-first advertising platform for its sound boxes and is adding AI modules that predict when a merchant might leave or when a device needs maintenance, shifting the model from one-time hardware sales to recurring SaaS revenue.
2. Industrial IoT: smart meters, farm sensors and bespoke tracking
CWD uses the same in-house design-to-manufacturing engine to build connected devices for utilities, farms and industrial customers - a portfolio of early-stage bets where orders are large but lumpy.
- Smart meters for the grid - CWD was chosen as design-cum-manufacturer by CyanConnode, India’s leading smart-meter communications provider, with a confirmed order for roughly 10 lakh communication node interface cards; the company has also launched its own communications module and completed meter integration with Schneider and others.
- Weather stations for farms - the company won an order for 25,000 weather monitoring systems from an Indian telecom company and a commitment for another 15,000 WMS, with revenue recognised progressively as the units are delivered and deployed in the field.
- Trackers, tags and safety wearables - the bespoke IoT portfolio includes a livestock health monitor, a personal safety device being certified for hazardous environments, a clinical-grade temperature sensor with a 90-day battery, and a compact asset tracker built on a Nordic chipset.
- A new subsidiary for the grid - in September 2025 CWD incorporated Meshmerise Networks, a 51%-owned subsidiary, to design and manufacture narrowband RF mesh networks and hybrid communication platforms for smart energy and utilities.
Manufacturing and R&D engine
CWD’s shared foundation is a fully integrated, in-house design-and-production operation that lets it prototype a connected device, source the chips, manufacture the boards and ship the finished product - all without handing off to a third party.
- Design under one roof - the R&D centre in Mumbai handles electronics hardware design, system architecture, mechanical design, prototyping and testing, and it also helps customers re-engineer products to cut costs.
- A factory built for IoT volumes - the new Mysore facility, running on solar power, packs two high-speed automated SMT lines with 3D inspection, six assembly lines, eleven injection moulding machines and X-ray inspection, across 55,000 square feet of floorspace - nearly four times the size of the original plant.
- Chip partnerships that secure supply - CWD is Nordic Semiconductor’s first recognised design partner in India for Bluetooth Low Energy, a design partner for Semtech’s LoRa modules, and works with MediaTek for cellular-IoT chips, giving it preferred access to components that rivals may struggle to source.
- Direct sourcing, no middlemen - the company buys components directly from OEMs and holds exclusive supplier partnerships, which insulates it from shortages and keeps material costs down.
Group structure and partners
CWD is a family-promoted holding company with four subsidiaries and a customer list that reads like a directory of India’s digital infrastructure giants.
- The holding company, CWD Limited, controls three wholly or nearly wholly owned subsidiaries - CWD Manufacturing in India, CWD Innovations HK in Hong Kong, and SDG Global in India - plus the 51%-owned Meshmerise Networks incorporated in late 2025.
- The co-founders, Tejas Kothari and Siddhartha Xavier, serve as joint managing directors; Siddhartha Xavier’s brother Aditya is the head of technology, and Tejas Kothari’s wife Amishi is a non-executive director.
- Key customer relationships include PhonePe and CyanConnode, where CWD acts as design-cum-manufacturer, a leading telecom company for weather monitoring systems, and Bajaj Finance, Sriram Finance, PayNearBy and AirPay for fintech devices.
- The company has signed an MoU with a leading global enterprise software company to explore deploying CWD hardware, integrating its Insight platform, and pursuing joint go-to-market strategies.