‘Zetwerk BUILD’ launched to nurture, scale Hardware Startups

In keeping with its objective of strengthening the manufacturing startup ecosystem, Zetwerk Manufacturing Businesses, the world’s largest platform for contract manufacturing, has unveiled ‘Zetwerk BUILD’ - a programme designed to provide end-to-end supply chain solutions for hardware startups in robotics, consumer products, electric mobility, among others.

With India being the fifth largest economy and the third-largest ecosystem for startups globally, the country holds unforeseen opportunities for hardware startups to accelerate innovation across industries. Through this programme, Zetwerk will provide a complete stack of dedicated services for each requirement of a hardware startup to expedite its journey from prototype to production, a company statement said.

The programme promises four critical features to any budding startup in the hardware space: Build, Research, Collaborate & Network, it added.

Under the programme, start-ups would be able to work with Zetwerk to expedite prototypes to production process, scale up, and build resilient supply chains and dedicated assembly lines for long term growth. They will also be able to leverage Zetwerk’s network and experience in building R&D-intensive products in new age industries of drones, space and aerosystems. Besides, start ups would be able to collaborate with over 20 industry verticals of Zetwerk to run pilots with world’s leading companies and also get a chance to work with other startup founders, product managers, VCs, and industry experts.

The programme will also enable hardware startups to scale their operations and improve their production capabilities by Zetwerk’s manufacturing capabilities and reaching out to newer markets through Zetwerk’s partner network. In addition, the company will offer tailor-made resilient supply chain solutions to start-ups for their products and leverage Zetwerk’s global scale and logistics to expedite deliveries.

“Manufacturing is hard. Setting up a reliable manufacturing value chain for early-stage hardware companies is a major challenge. Through BUILD, Zetwerk aims to help early-stage hardware companies accelerate output and optimise production by unlocking high quality, reliable, cost-competitive manufacturing through the click of a button. Zetwerk BUILD aims to be the default operating system for manufacturing,” said Amrit Acharya, Co-Founder & CEO, Zetwerk Manufacturing.

Over the next 24 months, Zetwerk aims to partner with at least 50 hardware startups globally through the program. In addition to providing discounted pricing for global logistics and warehousing, Zetwerk will also offer financial assistance for setting up dedicated production lines to aid these startups’ long-term growth.

“Product development for an early-stage hardware startup company is always daunting, especially in an ecosystem that’s constantly evolving to meet the growing demand. In addition, they work with limited resources, long product development cycles, and high costs, which can be extremely difficult for startups. However, Zetwerk has demonstrated mass manufacturing capabilities across multiple industrial and consumer product manufacturing categories. Zetwerk BUILD will share our learnings from these experiences with young companies solving ambitious product problems with innovative hardware solutions,” said Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Co-Founder & COO, Zetwerk.

Zetwerk has built a dedicated team of design, engineering, procurement, quality assurance and control, vendor and supply chain management, and logistics engineers. This team will work closely to mentor the hardware startups and develop long-term partnerships.