TechCrunch · Feb 14, 2026 · Collected from RSS
The two-story location will sell products from Nothing and the more affordable, mass-market brand CMF.
Nothing, the hardware company backed by Tiger Global, is opening its first retail store in India, its biggest market. The store is located in Bengaluru, where a large chunk of Nothing’s userbase in India is concentrated, the company said. The new, two-storied location will show off Nothing’s products and other projects. Customers will also be able to buy hardware products and other merchandise from the store and have select items customized. “We wanted to create a fun space. It is kind of inspired by all the parts that are related to the brand. For instance, the factory: if you buy a product, there’s like a production line where the product comes out. We also show machines where phones go through testing, like USB port testing or water resistance testing. So we just wanted to bring that world together,” the company’s co-founder and CEO Carl Pei said. The store will feature products from both Nothing and CMF, its budget brand, which it spun off last year. Notably, CMF is headquartered in India and has a joint venture with local Indian ODM (original design manufacturer), Optiemus. Pei mentioned that both brands are differentiated in terms of the products they offer, which fall in different price ranges, as well as the audience they target. “Nothing is more niche with a higher price. CMF is more [targeted towards] mass. You know it’s mass, but it’s not like just off-the-shelf rebrand products that usually what occurs in this price point. They are also products that we put a lot of care into,” he said. India has been Nothing’s strongest market, with over 2% market share in smartphones, analyst firm IDC told TechCrunch last year. It also noted that Nothing was the fastest-growing brand in the country in Q2 2025, with 85% growth in shipments year-over-year. Other hardware makers are building aspirational retail stores in India, too. Apple is set to open its sixth store in the country this month, situated in Borivali, Mumbai, for instance. This is the first Nothing store outside of London, where the company is headquartered. The startup said that it plans to open two more stores in Tokyo and New York, but didn’t provide timelines for openings. The company raised $200 million in Series C funding at a $1.3 billion valuation last year, led by Tiger Global, along with investors like GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF, and Tapestry. Nothing has raised $450 millon to date. Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web. You can contact or verify outreach from Ivan by emailing im@ivanmehta.com or via encrypted message at ivan.42 on Signal. View Bio