“We saw Kadwa sarees being sold for nearly Rs 50,000, but the artisans who wove them struggled to earn even a fraction of that. Their creations travelled the world, but their lives never changed,” says Vijaya Kumar Krishnappa.

He recalls visiting weaving communities where a master craftsperson would hesitate before cutting cloth for testing because even a metre of silk cost more than their daily wage. “The beauty of the saree was celebrated everywhere,” he continues, “except in the home where it was woven.”

This long-standing disquiet, a mixture of sadness and indignation, became the invisible thread that eventually stitched KOSHA.ai into existence. And it began with an unlikely encounter.

It was an ordinary morning run in Bengaluru, the kind when the world feels suspended in an unrushed, undulating calm, when Vijaya crossed paths with Ramki (Ramakrishna) Kodipady, a seasoned electronics engineer with decades of experience in complex technological systems. A passing greeting evolved into a conversation, which in turn became a dialogue that outlasted the run itself.

“We began speaking about the frustrations we had internalised for years,” Ramki tells The Better India. “Why was the textile ecosystem so opaque? Why was the truth so hard to establish? And could technology ever serve the smallest producers instead of just the biggest corporations?”

Their backgrounds aligned flawlessly: Vijaya with his experience in textiles, clusters, and artisan livelihoods; Ramki with his ability to build tough and scalable systems.

“I remember thinking, here is someone who sees the same cracks in the system, and refuses to accept them as inevitable,” Ramki adds. That day, without any formal plan, KOSHA.ai began its slow but determined emergence.

By the time KOSHA.ai was formally introduced in 2020, counterfeiting had become rampant. Inferior powerloom products masqueraded as handloom, and fibre blends were misrepresented as pure silk. Even seasoned buyers were misled.

“Weavers told us that customers simply didn’t believe them anymore. And without trust, their livelihood collapsed,” Vijaya says.

“We believe circularity begins with truth. If you cannot identify a fibre, you cannot recycle it. If you cannot prove........

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