Transforming Manufacturing
Among all unicorns, Zetwerk truly stands out due to the audacity of the company to address a tough industry like manufacturing. But the company does it with flair and finesse.
The Bengaluru-headquartered company works with more than 3,000 supply partners to drive various manufacturing requirements — all of whom are SMEs/ MSMEs. They see a 15-20 per cent increase in their revenues on an average every year. In fact, some of their SME partners see more than a 100 per cent increase in revenue while partnering with Zetwerk.
“We feel great when some of our SME partners share photographs of a new house they bought using the extra income they generated via partnering with Zetwerk,” says Srinath Ramakkrushnan, co-founder, Zetwerk.
Boosting India’s Manufacturing Zetwerk has also helped more than 250 international customers to get their products manufactured by Indian suppliers, all of which would have otherwise gone to China. The company is truly contributing to India’s manufacturing GDP.
At its current scale, Zetwerk employs more than 1,000 people full-time and generates employment for another 50,000 people indirectly through its business across India. Also, while the company has seen a 3-4x average growth in revenue over the past few years, it also turned EBITDA and PAT positive during 2021.
How does Zetwerk feel about the ‘uni-corn’ status? “Zetwerk focuses relentlessly on unit economics, costs, and responsibility towards the investors’ trust, faith, and money. So naturally, we are aware of the responsibilities that come with the unicorn tag. However, we believe it is just the start of the journey for us, and we have struck a golden opportunity of bringing transformation into manufacturing, which is at the core of India’s agenda for growth. We will play a pivotal role in ensuring the growth of the economy and the country over the next few decades,” says Ramakkrushnan.
Today, Zetwerk is collaborating with CII for scaling up the capabilities of small and medium-sized businesses in India. During the second wave of Covid, it helped set up over 30 new oxygen plants in hospitals across the country to augment the medical oxygen supply for fighting Covid.
Additionally, the company has a unique programme for hardware startups/ early-stage companies to help bring their products to market at a significant discount. Presently, Zetwerk works with five such hardware startups across electric vehicles, agriculture, special purpose machines, and other industries.
Zetwerk started international expansion about two years ago. As a result, the company’s annualised GMV run rate from the international business in March crossed the $250 million mark.
“We expect the contribution from International to grow significantly in the coming quarters as the global economy recovers from macroeconomic and Covid pressures”, says Ramakkrushnan.
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