\u201cI decided to play the long-term game: start early in headset hardware manufacturing, as the AR\/VR market was still nascent. The Indian government had also started furthering its initiative of Make in India. Things just aligned for us,\u201d <\/strong>Suraj Aiar, founder of QWR<\/a>, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Founded in 2017, QWR is a Mumbai-based startup that innovates and manufactures its own line of personal computing devices across VR, mixed reality headsets, and AI smart glasses. It caters to sectors such as education, defence, healthcare, and industrial use.\u00a0<\/p>\n HOW IT ALL BEGAN<\/p>\n Hailing from a business family in Chembur, Mumbai, Suraj Aiar had an entrepreneurial bent of mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n In his early teens, he launched a cybercaf\u00e9 business, which still runs to this day.\u00a0<\/p>\n After finishing school in Mumbai, his interest in computers and gaming led him to pursue a degree in Animation and Computer Graphics from Whistling Woods International.<\/p>\n Right after graduation, he joined Ubisoft, a game development company.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was working on games like Assassin’s Creed. But soon, I realized developing games wasn’t what I thought it was. I wasn’t the kind of person to sit on desks for months. Next up, I set up an events company under a large BFSI ticketing partner,\u201d <\/strong>Suraj shares with Startup Pedia. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n By 2014, after the parent company was acquired by NASDAQ, Suraj exited it.<\/p>\n Eventually, he secured a remote job in China through a hackathon he won on Reddit. Suraj Aiar had packaged a computer vision and machine learning algorithm into a usable enterprise solution \u2013 which impressed a Chinese machine vision think tank backed by Sina (China’s equivalent of Twitter).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis think tank was transitioning into a company around 2015 and 2016. I had joined as a Program Manager and convinced the board to shift the firm’s focus from consumer apps to enterprise solutions. Their algorithms seemed to work better with structured data,\u201d <\/strong>he says. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Within one and a half years, by 2017, Suraj gained experience and exited the company with decent proceeds.<\/p>\n These funds gave him hope to start something of his own.<\/p>\n At the time, the AR\/VR space in India was in its growing stage. Suraj Aiar decided to enter it and build it from the ground up.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBack then, I thought to myself that if the future will have people wearing computers on their heads, it only makes sense to set up a manufacturing facility that builds headsets instead of investing in just another smartphone factory,\u201d <\/strong>the entrepreneur says. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In 2017, Suraj Aiar invested his savings and started\u00a0QWR<\/a> (Question What’s Real) as a hardware company with the vision to build made-in-India AR\/VR glasses and headsets.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read More: Surat Family Built A Premium Gym Wear Brand By Sourcing Material From Nike\u2019s Suppliers \u2013 Hit Rs 6 Cr Monthly Revenue & Have 1 Mn+ Customers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n JOURNEY AND CHALLENGES\u00a0<\/p>\n Initially, when QWR started, Suraj and his small team struggled with certifications and compliances that needed to be in place to establish anything in the realm of VR tech.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2018, a second co-founder, Shubhajit Chatterjee, joined QWR and took over quality assurance, product development, and supply chain management. Suraj, on the other hand, focused on the backend tech of the headsets.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe first three to four years went into cracking the product-market-fit. We had launched a VR headset for direct consumers. But that couldn’t work out. QWR didn’t have the enormous amounts of marketing budgets that are required to facilitate consumer adoption of VR headsets,\u201d <\/strong>startup founder Suraj Aiar says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In 2020, QWR decided to make a pivot that went on to change the startup\u2019s entire trajectory: the founders decided to shift from building a consumer-oriented company to building an enterprise-focused company.\u00a0<\/p>\n The logic was simple \u2013 QWR, as a new player, wanted to enter markets that weren’t dominated by larger players like Meta.<\/p>\n This calculated decision of steering away from the market of consumer electronics to focusing on enterprise-level solutions more than just worked out for QWR.<\/p>\n \u201cWe decided to target sectors like education, defence, healthcare, and industrial use,\u201d <\/strong>Suraj mentions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In the education sector, there was a visible gap in democratized education delivery, with schools and students grappling with unequal access to quality education. Suraj and Shubhajit knew that immersive learning was the solution.<\/p>\n But what was different?<\/p>\n Earlier, VR headset companies were simply importing headsets from abroad and adding basic content layers to them. This wasn’t sufficient for schools looking to truly make their students open up and respond to immersive learning.<\/p>\n So QWR built not just Indian-made VR headsets for schools but also designed entire turnkey packages, including hardware, training modules, integration, and content that is tailored to each grade\u2019s pre-defined curriculum.<\/p>\n \u201cBut building these headsets was a capital-intensive task. We didn’t have the IIT-IIM tag, and investors kept backing out, claiming the market was \u201ctoo new.\u201d So we pushed through with savings,\u201d <\/strong>entrepreneur Suraj Aiar shares.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n By 2023, the founders began expanding their team and started making AR\/VR headsets compatible with healthcare, defence, and industrial-use sectors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read More: Mumbai Founders Build A Cloud Kitchen Brand Selling Customised Biryani \u2013 Now Have 22 Stores In Delhi, Mumbai, Dubai; Eye Rs 100 Cr Revenue<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n QUESTION WHAT’S REAL: HARDWARE OF THE FUTURE\u00a0<\/p>\n Today, QWR (Question What’s Real)<\/a> operates as one of the leading Indian companies that is innovating and manufacturing its own line of personal computing devices across VR, mixed reality headsets, and AI smart glasses.<\/p>\n The Mumbai-based startup has innovated spatial computing devices that offer human-eye resolution and photorealistic visual fidelity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis kind of clarity is needed for professional applications that we are currently focused on catering to,\u201d <\/strong>Suraj mentions. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In the education space, QWR\u2019s VR headsets provide hands-on training and encourage an immersive learning experience.<\/p>\n In the defence sector, QWR\u2019s headsets come in to empower soldiers and teams to practice in realistic simulations \u2013 enhancing mission planning, combat training, and situational awareness, without risking lives on the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n QWR\u2019s VR solutions are perfect for medical training, therapy, and diagnostics.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are the future of Virtual Reality. And trust me, it’s here,\u201d <\/strong>startup founder Suraj adds. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n QWR\u2019s product lineup includes VRone. Edu, used across K\u201312 learning environments; VRone. PC, a high-performance tethered headset for simulation and gaming; and VRone. Pro, purpose-built for immersive training and deployment at industrial scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n Together, these systems reflect QWR\u2019s commitment to building practical, application-driven XR hardware.<\/p>\n The founders also affirm that most brands in the AR\/VR headset space focus on \u201cwant.\u201d Unlike them, QWR is building solutions that fall in the \u201cneed\u201d bucket.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike Meta, our headsets are safe to be worn by kids at school. They do not require you to log into a Facebook account, for instance. We also know that parents \u201cneed\u201d their children to be safe on the Internet. We’ve solved for all privacy concerns at QWR<\/strong>,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>Suraj adds<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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![\"Image\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-2025-08-20-15-51-13.png\")
Suraj Aiar in a meeting<\/p>\n\n
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![\"VRone.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/vrone-pro-2025-08-20-15-53-40.png\")
QWR Product<\/p>\n\n
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![\"Group](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/group-333-2025-08-20-15-56-54.png\")
VR in K-12 Education<\/p>\n
![\"5\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/5-2025-08-19-17-42-18.png\")
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