Following the recent announcement of CMF's structural spin-out from its parent company, the brand is already taking the next steps to solidify its national presence. CMF has announced that it's expanding its ongoing collaboration with the Optiemus Group.
CMF's Series A Investment and Ownership Shift
Nothing and CMF co-founder Akis Evangelidis have announced that Opteimus will participate in CMF's upcoming Series A funding round. This will lay the necessary groundwork for a major structural transition, resulting in CMF operating under a majority Indian shareholding.
As Carl highlighted in his announcement post on X, Akis reiterated that the primary objective of this joint venture is to establish India's very first genuine end-to-end smartphone research and development pipeline.
While highlighting India's engineering talent pool, massive market scale, and supportive government manufacturing ecosystem, Akis also pointed out that the domestic market has historically lacked a native brand capable of building a full-stack hardware operation from the ground up.
By injecting Nothing's expertise as a brand and its established global engineering blueprint into CMF, the latter aims to fill that exact gap alongside Optiemus. Through this partnership, CMF intends to establish a local pipeline through which the brand can build its own OEM smartphones rather than relying on off-the-shelf parts.
For those unaware, CMF (previously CMF by Nothing) partnered with Opteimus to manufacture its audio products and assemble phones. The brand had planned to invest over $100 million in the group in 2025 to boost its India manufacturing ambitions. As a result, this step arrives as a major milestone for both firms betting big on the Indian market.
While it's still unknown whether Akis would be the one heading CMF's India operations, the announcement coming from the man himself does suggest it's a real possibility. More information about investments, leadership decisions and potential product announcements should surface as the partnership progresses, so stay tuned.
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