The queue in a Trichy supermarket moved slowly. Billing counters beeped, trolleys nudged forward, and customers waited with patience. M Revathi stood there too—watching, calculating, slightly irritated. “I kept thinking, why should something so simple consume so much time?” she says. The question didn’t end at the checkout. It followed her home and soon took shape as a solution: a smart trolley that could scan and bill items automatically, doing away with long queues altogether.
That instinct—to notice friction and resolve it—runs through Magnitudo Technologies, the company Revathi founded in 2021 in Trichy. Magnitudo builds Internet-connected devices and the software that powers them—compact, purpose-driven electronics paired with mobile or web apps that turn raw data into clear, usable action for farmers, retailers, and small businesses.
The second push came from closer home. Revathi grew up in a farming family and had seen how cattle health was often managed through guesswork. Farmers relied on observation and instinct, with little access to timely data. So she and her team developed a small, attachable device that tracks activity, temperature, and movement, sending alerts to a phone when something goes off track.
“Technology was available,” she says, “but it wasn’t accessible or user-friendly for common people.” Magnitudo positions itself in that gap—building tools that are simple to use, affordable, and designed for real-world problems. No unnecessary features, no intimidating dashboards, just systems that work.
For Revathi, technology has never been about complexity. She enjoyed solving problems from a young age—breaking systems down, rebuilding them, explaining how they functioned. Academia gave her the space to sharpen that instinct. As an Assistant Professor of Electronics at Rajalakshmi Engineering College, she thrived intellectually. “There were ideas everywhere,” she says, “but no space to convert them into usable solutions.” That realisation gave direction to an ambition she had long held. “I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” she says. “My career helped me understand what kind of company I wanted to build—one where innovation is not delayed by hierarchy.”
Magnitudo began lean and personal. Bootstrapped from the start, it ran on conviction more than capital. Revathi’s husband—a technical architect with over two decades of experience—became her closest collaborator. A relative and a friend joined the effort. Their first client came through trust: a former academic colleague who needed a custom-built application for a small business. “We refined it as a team,” Revathi says.
Hardware, however, tested their patience. Building devices without a private lab or deep funding meant relying on shared infrastructure, adapting constantly, and accepting delays. “It was overwhelming at times,” she admits. “But consistent learning and support helped me stay focused.”
Her research background proved useful. She secured an MSME 3.0 grant for a wall-climbing robot—an achievement that strengthened both confidence and credibility.
Revathi does not dramatise the grind. To her, challenges are design flaws waiting to be solved. “This journey is about creating something that lasts,” she says. “Something people can understand and be proud of.”