WOW STORY OF THE DAY: He Managed Exhibitions in Oman, Saw a Gap in India's Wall Art Market, and Built Artociti in Bokaro.

Oman, a Father's Love for Art, and a Garage That Became a Factory

• Indrajeet Kumar and Swatiki Prakash were an Indian couple based in Oman when the founding insight arrived. While searching for premium relief décor for their own home, they identified a clear gap: rising demand in India for spiritual and cultural wall art, and a market almost entirely dependent on generic imported alternatives or expensive on-site sculpting work that took weeks to complete.
• There was also a more personal dimension. The venture began as a tribute to Indrajeet's father's lifelong love for art. The desire to honour that passion while solving a genuine market problem became the emotional foundation of everything Artociti would build.
• "While managing exhibitions in the Middle East, I recognised a massive gap in the Indian market for premium, high-quality relief 3D wall décor. We built Artociti during the pandemic with a vision to create a national design-manufacturing brand right from Tier-2 India," Indrajeet says.
• Artociti Canvas Private Limited was incorporated on January 6, 2021, with Indrajeet as Founder and CEO and Swatiki Prakash as Co-founder and Head of Technology and Finance. They started from a pandemic-era garage in Bokaro, Jharkhand, a deliberate decision to build a world-class brand from exactly the kind of place India's startup ecosystem had always overlooked.

Design-Manufacturing, 12-Inch Depth, and a Factory That Creates Local Employment

• The defining positioning Artociti chose was one that most art brands actively avoid: describing themselves as a design-manufacturing company rather than an art brand. Indrajeet emphasised industrial scalability rather than artisanal limitation from day one, and that framing shaped every decision that followed.
• Artociti's product architecture reflects this philosophy completely. The brand engineers large-format, high-relief décor pieces with depths of up to 12 inches, producing 3D relief murals, fiberglass sculptures, and hand-painted canvases in collaboration with tribal and rural artisans. Every product is Vastu-compliant, culturally rich, and suitable for both residential homes and commercial spaces including hotels, offices, and cultural institutions.
• Traditionally, 3D wall art required expensive on-site labour and weeks of sculpting. Artociti disrupted this entirely by building a vertically integrated manufacturing model where everything is produced in-house in Bokaro, delivered to customers without any on-site work required.
• "Building our foundation in India and scaling operations from scratch wasn't just about making art. It was about engineering scalable manufacturing. By keeping production entirely in-house, we maintain precision and quality in our designs while creating meaningful local employment," Swatiki Prakash says.
• That last phrase carries particular weight. By building in Bokaro rather than outsourcing to cheaper suppliers, Artociti became a genuine engine of local employment, with 80-plus people on its manufacturing team, aligning the brand's commercial ambitions with India's broader regional industrialisation goals.
• The experience-led retail strategy solved the final barrier to purchasing high-value décor online: the inability to understand the physical presence of a three-dimensional product from a photograph. Artociti's 3,000-square-foot Artociti Experience Centre in Kirti Nagar, Delhi, allows customers to touch and feel the relief before purchasing. Plans are in place to replicate this format in Pune, Bengaluru, and Chennai, with international export opportunities being explored in the medium term.

Two Women Investors, One Manufacturing Vision, and a Brand Built Far From the Mainstream

• Artociti appeared on Shark Tank India Season 5 Episode 31, aired February 16, 2026. Indrajeet and Swatiki entered seeking ₹1 crore for 3% equity at a ₹33.33 crore valuation.
• The pitch impressed the Sharks with its manufacturing discipline, Tier-2 origin story, and the founders' clarity about building a design-manufacturing company rather than a lifestyle brand. Namita Thapar and Vineeta Singh both saw the opportunity clearly, recognising vertically integrated manufacturing from Tier-2 India as a highly defensible competitive position.
• The founders requested the royalty clause be removed, but Namita and Vineeta held firm on downside protection. The final deal closed at ₹1 crore for 7.5% equity plus a 2% royalty until ₹1.5 crore is recouped, at a valuation of ₹13.33 crore. This marks Artociti's first institutional funding.
• The fresh capital is being deployed to build a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Bokaro to increase production capacity, ensure stricter quality control, and dramatically reduce delivery lead times.

Scale and Real-World Impact

• Artociti was incorporated January 6, 2021, and is headquartered in Bokaro, Jharkhand. The brand operates a vertically integrated manufacturing facility employing over 80 people. Approximately 40% of sales originate from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, confirming aspirational demand for premium décor across India. The flagship experience centre is a 3,000-square-foot space in Kirti Nagar, Delhi, with three additional centres planned in Pune, Bengaluru, and Chennai. Total funding raised is ₹1 crore from Namita Thapar and Vineeta Singh on Shark Tank India Season 5. India's home décor market is valued at $28.27 billion in 2026 and projected to reach $42.36 billion by 2034, with the wall décor segment valued at $760 million growing at 6.69% CAGR.

The Most Overlooked Manufacturing Opportunities Are the Ones Built Far From Where Everyone Is Looking

• The sharpest lesson from Artociti's journey is this: the most defensible manufacturing businesses are the ones built in places where no one else is looking, because the combination of lower costs, available talent, first-mover advantage, and genuine local impact creates a moat that urban competitors struggle to replicate.
• Indrajeet Kumar built a world-class 3D wall art manufacturing facility in Bokaro, Jharkhand, starting from a pandemic-era garage. He chose to describe his company as a design-manufacturing company rather than an art brand, because he understood that the manufacturing infrastructure was the real moat. Namita Thapar and Vineeta Singh invested because they saw that Made in Bokaro already meant world-class quality.
• "This investment validates our belief that Made in Bokaro can mean world-class quality at an industrial scale," Indrajeet says.
• He saw the gap in Oman. He built the solution in a garage in Bokaro. He created 80 jobs in Jharkhand. And India's walls are beginning to tell stories that were always waiting to be told.

Sources: APN News, Indian Startup Times, Startup News FYI, VieStories, StartupArticle, CineShrushti, Shark Tank Audits