The scene is almost too prosaic to notice: a small storefront tucked inside a residential tower in Bengaluru, housing row upon row of sleek, automated lockers. But for Vijay Arisetty, it represents something far more ambitious—an attempt to crack open one of India's most stubborn infrastructure bottlenecks.
Arisetty's company, Aurm, just closed INR 42 crore (roughly $4.4 million to $5.0 million) in Series A funding, announced in early May. The round was co-led by Earth Fund and Sattva Ventures, with a handful of angel investors joining. The capital will bankroll what amounts to a physical real estate play: expanding a network of 24/7-access vault facilities embedded inside apartment complexes, office parks, and bank branches across southern India.
It's a bet on something most people outside India might find quaint—the enduring cultural attachment to physical gold. Indian households and temples collectively hold about 25,000 tonnes of the metal, according to data cited by the Economic Times. At current valuations, that's $2.4 trillion sitting in safes, under mattresses, or behind temple walls. Yet the country's public sector banks operate just 1.09 crore lockers, a figure the Finance Minister shared with the Lok Sabha that hasn't scaled in step with urban demand.
Aurm, founded in 2023, thinks it can fill the gap banks won't. Or can't.
Lockers That Don't Sleep
The company's model is straightforward, if capital-intensive. Each vault facility occupies about 300 square feet and houses up to 300 lockers, outfitted with what Aurm calls military-grade construction—CCTV arrays, motion and vibration sensors, temperature monitoring, multi-factor authentication at the door. Customers get around-the-clock access, a sharp departure from the rigid branch hours that govern traditional bank lockers.
Right now, Aurm operates in three cities: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Visakhapatnam, according to Earth Fund's portfolio page. The company has pursued a deliberate strategy of embedding vaults inside residential projects, partnering with developers like Sattva Group and Prestige Group. There's also a tie-up with Tata AIG General Insurance, which covers up to INR 1 crore per customer—a detail that matters in a country where trust in storage security remains deeply personal.
Arisetty isn't a first-time founder. Before Aurm, he launched MyGate, the residential security platform that became ubiquitous in Indian gated communities. Before that? He flew helicopters for the Indian Air Force from 1999 to 2010. It's an eclectic résumé, though perhaps fitting for someone trying to build infrastructure in a market where incumbents move slowly.
His co-founder Ganesh Balakrishnan brings a different pedigree—footwear brand Flatheads and a Shark Tank India appearance. The rest of the founding team includes Suraj H S and Pratap Chandana, both of whom have kept lower profiles.
Crowded, But Not Yet Saturated
Aurm isn't alone in seeing opportunity here. ICICI Bank launched its "Smart Vault" automated locker system back in 2015, a pilot that hinted at where the industry might go. Just days before Aurm announced its funding, Axis Bank opened a digital locker-focused branch in early May, signaling renewed interest from legacy players. Private operators like MySafe India in Gurugram and Brink's Secure Vault in Bengaluru have also staked claims in the space.
What sets Aurm apart, at least for now, is the residential-first distribution model. Rather than asking customers to trek to a standalone facility, the company is planting vaults where people already live and work. Whether that proves defensible remains an open question—developers could, in theory, cut out the middleman and operate their own vaults. But partnerships take time to unwind, and Aurm is racing to lock in enough locations before the market heats up.
The Series A capital will go toward scaling the technology platform—customer onboarding, access management, monitoring systems—and opening additional sites. The company employs approximately 40 people, according to LinkedIn data from early May, a modest headcount that suggests operations remain lean. Prime Venture Partners is listed as an investor on its portfolio page, though the firm hasn't disclosed when it came in or at what valuation.
Earth Fund, one of the co-leads, is a SEBI-registered Category II Alternative Investment Fund focused on PropTech. The fund operates out of Bengaluru, which perhaps explains why so much of India's real estate innovation—whether co-living, co-working, or now automated vaults—seems to originate in the city.
The Unanswered Questions
Still, there's a tension Aurm will need to navigate. The company is building physical infrastructure in a country where real estate is expensive and regulatory approval can be Byzantine. Each new vault requires space, security personnel, insurance underwriting, and a steady stream of customers willing to pay subscription fees rather than hoarding valuables at home.
Then there's the cultural question. Will younger, digitally native Indians—accustomed to dematerialized everything—even need safe deposit boxes? Or is this a transitional business, serving a generation that still sees gold as the ultimate hedge against uncertainty?
Arisetty and his team seem to be betting that the market is large enough, and underserved enough, that those questions won't matter for a while. And with $2.4 trillion in gold still tucked away in drawers and cupboards across the country, it's hard to argue they're wrong.
For now, anyway.
