Jeh Aerospace looks to raise funds for expansion
Partners with 10 MSME’s; bringing in 40 machines to manufacture aero structure and aero engine components to address global aerospace supply chain issues
(From left) Venkatesh Mudragalla and R Vishal Sanghavi, Co-founders, Jeh Aerospace during the launch of the facility in Hyderabad
- Targeting 200-300 aerospace manufacturers
- Aims to unlock the 70% value addition happening in Tier 1-3 beyond OEM assembly
- Plans to hire 100 people in 4 months
Hyderabad: City-based Jeh Aerospace, an aerospace and defence manufacturing startup launched a 1.60 lakh sqft manufacturing facility in Hyderabad. The facility will primarily focus on making aero structure and aero engine components that go into the body structure of an aircraft and aero engine, which makes up to 60 to 70 per cent of the aircraft.
The startup which offers manufacturing, engineering, and supply chain management solutions to the global aerospace and defence industry, has a team placed in Hyderabad and a US team dealing with Sales. In the next four months, Jeh Aerospace will be employing 100 people of which 50 per cent jobs will be into operators and the rest will be engineers, inspectors, management trainees, supply chain, among others. The startup will be mostly importing 30 to 40 machines for this facility from Germany, Japan and the US, after which they will kickstart operations in the next four to five months.
Speaking with Bizz Buzz, Venkatesh Mudragalla and R Vishal Sanghavi, Co-founders, Jeh Aerospace, said: “There are 200 to 300 aerospace manufacturers after the top tier OEMs for whom the India market has not been unlocked. We are reaching out to them to get them to tap India’s potential in aerospace manufacturing. The 70 per cent of value add takes place in tier 1, 2, 3 of aerospace manufacturing supply chain not the OEMs. OEM are already leveraging in India but that will only solve 20 to 30 per cent of the entire problem the rest 70 per cent will be solved only when we reach out and help the tier 1, 2 manufacturers to leverage India. We are helping them leverage the capability, capacity and cost competitiveness of India.”
The startup has partnered with 10 Indian MSME’s which have aerospace manufacturing capabilities. Jeh Aerospace will leverage Indian MSMEs capabilities add value to it at this facility for it to be delivered to the customers. Their client base includes the US and the Europe aerospace manufacturers as global supply chain resilience is the need of the hour.
The startup recently raised $2.75 million in Seed round of funding from San Francisco-based venture capitalist General Catalyst and other angel investors. The founders said that the fund will be invested into building infrastructure, team and create awareness about Jeh Aerospace’s place in the ecosystem. “In the next 12 to 18 months we will look at raising another round of investment but we do not have a number to give out right now, but we will have to show traction and revenue growth before raising the next round of funds. Our existing contracts run in multi million dollars but we will not able to share the revenue growth we are looking at,” the co-founders said.
