CMF, a global consumer technology brand, has announced an expanded partnership with Optiemus Group, under which Optiemus will also join Nothing’s upcoming Series A investment round for the CMF brand. Setting CMF on a path to become a majority Indian-owned, independent smartphone brand – built from India, for the world.
The expanded partnership takes forward the strategic manufacturing joint venture that Nothing and Optiemus announced in September 2025, which established India as a production hub for Nothing and CMF products. That joint venture will now evolve into a deeper, more comprehensive partnership: manufacturing, ownership, and R&D are now united under a single Indian entity with CMF, the natural next step in Nothing and Optiemus’s shared commitment to building India’s technology capability from the ground up.
This announcement builds on the Indian government’s sustained efforts to strengthen the country’s electronics manufacturing and technology ecosystem, creating the foundation for the next phase of capability building in India. CMF’s investment in local R&D and engineering is intended to build on that foundation, taking India’s role in the smartphone value chain from manufacturing towards technology development and global exports.
Carl Pei, CEO of Nothing, said: “India has everything needed to become a global technology powerhouse – extraordinary engineering talent, a huge consumer market, increasingly strong manufacturing capabilities, and a government that has consistently supported the growth of India’s electronics and manufacturing ecosystem. That foundation now allows us to take the next step: building India’s first full-stack smartphone R&D capability through CMF. We have already proven at Nothing that an independent brand can build its own design, software and engineering capabilities, create a global brand and ship millions of products around the world. Now we want to bring that blueprint to India through CMF, together with Optiemus, and build it here, for the world.”
Ashok Gupta, Executive Chairman of Optiemus, said: “Optiemus has always believed that India’s opportunity is not just to manufacture for the world, but to build the technology, capabilities and brands that can compete with the world. Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme (MPMS), introduced by MeitY, is an important step in turning that ambition into reality, supporting the development of R&D, IP, design and advanced manufacturing capabilities in India, while driving greater value addition within the country. This is an important part of our Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision for a stronger, more self-reliant India that can build for the world. Nothing has already shown what this looks like in practice – building its own design, software and engineering capabilities from scratch, and turning that into a genuine global brand shipping millions of products. CMF is uniquely placed to bring that same blueprint to India, backed by Optiemus’s manufacturing expertise and a policy environment that is increasingly enabling R&D and innovation at scale. We are proud to build that capability with CMF and Nothing, from the ground up.”
Building India’s First Full-Stack Smartphone R&D Capability
The partnership is designed to go beyond ownership and manufacturing, with the ambition of building CMF into India’s first smartphone brand with full-stack, end-to-end R&D capabilities, developed across six core disciplines:
Industrial Design: designing the phone’s look, form, and materials from concept through to the final product.
Mechanical Engineering: designing the phone’s structure, materials, thermal systems and overall hardware architecture.
Camera Engineering: developing camera systems, selecting sensors and building the technology behind image processing and photography.
Software Engineering: developing and optimising the software and operating system that power the hardware.
Connectivity Engineering: designing and tuning the phone’s antennas, radio systems and network performance.
Component Engineering: working directly with component suppliers to develop, test and optimise key components used in CMF products.
CMF will build on Nothing’s proven experience developing products across these disciplines in-house – the only independent smartphone brand in over a decade to build and scale a global business from scratch. The next step is to anchor that same capability in India through CMF, with the intellectual property it generates held locally: designed and engineered domestically, not just assembled here.
Much of the world’s smartphone engineering and component ecosystem is concentrated in China, built up over time through direct demand and R&D from local smartphone brands. Previous generations of Indian smartphone brands largely competed on assembly, distribution and price, while that deeper engineering and supplier base stayed offshore. CMF’s ambition is to create a similar demand-driven ecosystem in India, where engineering talent, component suppliers, local IP and product development can scale and drive innovation together.
