Zetwerk's IPO: Building India’s Universal Factory
Zetwerk lists today, eight years after it began operations in 2018. The journey to this day began with a spreadsheet.
At twenty-one, just out of IIT Madras, Amrit Acharya was setting up a factory for ITC. He had two hundred suppliers and one spreadsheet to manage them. Srinath Ramakkrushnan, a friend from IIT Madras and a colleague at ITC, knew the other side of the market. His family ran a steel fabrication business in Coimbatore.
Between them, they understood a problem India had talked around for decades. We have workshops everywhere that can make almost anything. A buyer had no way to find the right one.
Others joined their mission. Rahul Sharma had worked in the oil fields for Schlumberger and helped build BlackBuck. Vishal Chaudhary came from ITC. Ankit Fatehpuria, a chartered accountant from ITC’s finance team, joined in 2019. He opened Zetwerk’s first banking relationships and became its fifth co-founder in 2022.
Rajesh Yabaji, whom we partnered with at BlackBuck, brought them to Accel in late 2018. Indian venture then meant consumer and SaaS, and manufacturing wasn’t on anyone’s list. By the time they walked into our office, they had found the right model. Zetwerk would take the orders, split production across workshops in different cities, and own quality and delivery. They had built Zetwerk OS to run it all.
During diligence, I called business school friends, consultants and industry veterans. Everyone said it wouldn’t work. In the same breath, everyone said the problem was real and it hurt. I saw founders who understood that pain better than anyone.
February 2020 tested everything. Amrit was in the US to close a round he expected to wrap within a week. Then Covid hit and revenue went to zero. The founders trusted us with the worst news. We trusted them to get through it and put in $1 million. After that, Zetwerk moved fast, from metal fabrication into renewable energy, electronics, precision components, aerospace and defence.
Along the way it stopped only coordinating other people’s factories and started building its own. Twenty-six factories across India, the US, Germany and Spain. Nearly seven thousand suppliers in 26 countries.
Last year, Zetwerk did ₹15,913 crore (~$1.68B) in revenue. The order book stands at ₹12,370 crore (~$1.3B), double what it was two years ago. Eighty percent of manufacturing revenue came from returning customers.
What comes next is more interesting. In July 2026, Zetwerk switched on a transformer plant in Gujarat and a laminations facility in Dadra and Nagar Haveli. A solar module plant is going up in Telangana. Its U.S. lines make torque tubes for American solar farms. Energy is now its largest business, and a growing share of that demand comes from AI infrastructure. Zetwerk also builds for the Indian Railways, the Indian Air Force and DRDO.
In 2018, few buyers would trust a small workshop in Rajkot with a serious order. Today that workshop might be making parts for a solar farm in America or the power system behind a data centre. The buyer trusts it because Zetwerk’s name is on the order. That was the opportunity eight years ago. Now Zetwerk gets to push Indian manufacturing further as a public company.
Congratulations to Amrit, Srinath, Rahul, Vishal, Ankit and every Zetwerker. Thank you for letting us be part of the first chapter. Here’s to the next one.
