For Amrit Acharya, love for machines flowered when he, along with batchmate Srinath Ramakkrushnan, joined ITC as management trainee after graduating from IIT-Madras. “My first role was putting up a factory. Over the next couple of years, we hired a lot of people, got supply chain up and running and built infrastructure,” says Acharya, CEO and co-founder, Zetwerk Manufacturing, which taps small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have skill, technology and speed to build a range of capital goods, consumer goods and precision parts. It serves both industrial and commercial customers, with former accounting for 70% revenue share.
For Srinath Ramakkrushnan, too, the transition was easy, as his father used to run a metal fabrication shop in Tiruchirapalli. “I gained from his experience. The first category we launched when we started out in 2018 was metal fabrication,” he says. But metal fabrication was a Trojan horse. “We were industry-agnostic and started serving oil & gas refineries, cement plants, steel rolling mills and infrastructure projects. In mid-2019, we said, let’s focus on industry-specific manufacturing,” says Ramakkrushnan.
Zetwerk transacts with 3,000-4,000 SMEs and offers them a range of services, including logistics, but does not manufacture itself. It works with SMEs to ensure they meet the promise of quality and timely delivery. “We improve their revenue by at least 20%,” says Acharya.
Zetwerk ended FY2021 with revenues of `900 crore as opposed to `300 crore in FY2020. FY2022 revenue (till December) is six times the last year’s number. Exports account for 17% revenue as opposed to 5% three quarters ago. The company’s goals gel well with Make in India push. “On industrial, bolstered by Budget announcements, rapid indigenisation of defence procurement is of interest to us since we manufacture defence components too,” says Vishal Chaudhary, co-founder, Zetwerk.
However, commercial manufacturing is the fastest-growing segment. The shift to commercial happened during the first wave of Covid-19. “We saw apps such as TikTok getting banned along with restrictions on import of televisions,” says Acharya. “Now, we are trying to move a lot of supply chains from China to India,” says Rahul Sharma, co-founder, Zetwerk. — Anup Jayaram