Latest news with #Fabheads
Entrepreneur
2 hours ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Fabheads Raises USD 10 Mn Series A Led by Accel to Revolutionise Composite Fiber Manufacturing
The funds will primarily be used to scale up the company's manufacturing capacity, while also expanding its leadership team and strengthening its client-facing engineering and R&D divisions. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Fabheads, a Chennai-based deeptech startup, has raised USD 10 million in a Series A funding round led by Accel, with participation from Trifecta Capital. The funds will be deployed to significantly expand Fabheads' manufacturing capacity, strengthen its leadership team, and boost its engineering and R&D capabilities. This round brings the total funding raised by the company to USD 13 million. The company, founded in 2015 by former ISRO engineers Dhinesh Kanagaraj and Abhijeet Rathore, specialises in automating the manufacturing of continuous fiber composites—a process traditionally known for being slow, labor-intensive, and wasteful. According to the company statements, Fabheads is currently the only Indian company, and one of only seven globally, to have successfully automated this complex process using proprietary robotic systems. "Having experienced the limitations of manual composite manufacturing firsthand during our time at ISRO, we knew an innovative disruption was necessary — not incremental," said Dhinesh Kanagaraj, Co-founder and CEO of Fabheads. "This funding enables us to take a major step towards making composites accessible for aerospace, mobility, clean energy, and more." Fabheads' core offering includes a patented automated fiber placement system that can reduce manufacturing costs by up to 50%, material wastage by 20%, and accelerate production cycles by 30%. Their technology addresses long-standing inefficiencies in composite fiber production, particularly for high-performance applications in aerospace and mobility. With backgrounds in aerospace and mechanical engineering from IIT-Madras and IIT-Delhi respectively, the founders bring rich domain expertise, having worked on GSLV-Mk3 launch vehicles and satellite structures at ISRO. Accel Partner Prayank Swaroop added, "Fabheads has built proprietary technology that rivals the best globally in a domain with few serious players. They are addressing a critical bottleneck in advanced manufacturing." Fabheads plans to establish a new, larger manufacturing facility in Bengaluru to cater to the growing demand from India's aerospace sector and explore global markets. With this funding, Fabheads is poised to lead India's push into high-performance, automated composite manufacturing on the world stage.
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Composite manufacturing tech startup Fabheads raises $10 million in round led by Accel
Composite manufacturing technology startup Fabheads has raised $10 million in a mix of debt and equity, led by Accel . Of this, $2.3 million (Rs 20 crore) was raised from venture debt firm Trifecta Capital. The latest funding round brings the total funding raised by the Chennai-based startup to $13 million. In an interaction with ET, Fabheads cofounder Dhinesh Kanagaraj said that the funds will be used to scale the firm's manufacturing capacity, expand the leadership team, and strengthen its client-facing engineering as well as R&D divisions. 'The majority of the funds will be used for setting up a bigger manufacturing factory in Karnataka,' Kanagaraj said. 'It is between 80,000 to 100,000 square feet in size and is already in the process of being made. We are looking at having over 70 big machines here.' The facility is located at Bengaluru's Aerospace Park at the KIADB area and is set to be completed in the next six months. Currently, the startup has its office and factory only in Chennai with 13 machines. 'Fabrication of composite materials into finished goods takes long hours of manual labour. To make the process efficient, we have developed an automated manufacturing process that makes it a lot more reliable,' said Kanagaraj. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories 'Even though the composite material is strong, it is brittle, so it can break easily, which makes it difficult to automate this process. We have developed a technology called Adaptive Toe Placement (ATP), which allows handling these materials in a more precise manner and makes extremely complex parts,' he added. Fabheads was founded in 2015 by former ISRO engineers Kanagaraj and Abhijeet Rathore. The firm offers design and manufacturing services to drone, robotics, and shipping companies across India and plans to expand internationally. Some of its current clients include Tata, ISRO, and Motherson Group, among others.
