New Delhi, 23rd August 2024: Ben & Gaws Private Limited, which runs the manufacturing tech startup Fabrication Bazar, has raised $3 million in the Pre-Series A round led by Physis Capital. The round also saw participation from Japan based Venture Capital ICMG and existing investor Inflection Point Ventures.
Fabrication Bazar intends to utilize the funds raised, which includes part debt, for further enhancing the tech platform to support the growing scale of the Company, ramping up geographic presence to regions outside India especially GCC and SE Asia markets, and for leadership team hiring.
Founded by Dwaipayan Dutta, Fabrication Bazar is an asset-light tech enabled manufacturing platform for industrial steel products catering to 400+ clients across sectors. With its proprietary manufacturing tech driven process, the Company works with nearly 330+ fabrication vendors across India to improve production efficiency and reduce delivery time by splitting products into multiple parts and processing them simultaneously.
It is also working to digitize its supply chain, providing a platform that centralizes overall management from procurement to quality control and logistics, thereby optimizing the highly unused capacity of 1.5 million+ MSME fabrication vendors in India. With an extensive vendor network spread across India and an increasing presence in manufacturing hubs in South East Asia like Vietnam, Fabrication Bazar maintains global quality standards while reducing delivery time and cost compared to traditional manufacturers.
Dwaipayan Dutta, Co-Founder & CEO, says, “The Pre-Series A round is a continued validation of our business model and approach to solving the challenges faced by the steel fabrication industry in India through an asset-light strategy. Our tech-enabled, asset-light manufacturing platform empowers thousands of MSME steel fabricators across India by enhancing their capacity utilization, delivering quality products to blue-chip MNC clients, and providing them access to capital. This round helps us to further enhance our tech offerings and build the team to take us to the next level. Given the size and potential of the steel fabrication industry in India and globally, we see significant growth opportunities ahead.”
Ankur Mittal, Partner Physis Capital, says, “As India accelerates towards its $5 trillion economic vision, the steel fabrication industry emerges as a key player in this transformative journey. Fabrication Bazar stands at the forefront of this revolution, reshaping how the industry fulfils its steel fabrication needs. By seamlessly integrating advanced tech with a rigorously vetted global network of fabricators, they’re not just meeting demand—they’re redefining efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and quality standards. Their 6x growth since FY21 is proof of their innovative approach and market fit. As IPV and Physis, we’ve been more than just investors; we’ve been partners since 2022, and we remain committed to guiding Fabrication Bazar as they expand their tech and extend their reach into GCC market.”
Fabrication Bazar has grown across its operations in the last 12 months including the vendor network and client base in India. The Company has also been onboarded as a qualified vendor by some of the largest companies in GCC, and is establishing a vendor base in Vietnam to cater demand from the SEA region. With the rising interest from customers both in the domestic and international markets, the order book has grown 3X in the last 12 months. The Company has been operationally EBITDA positive since inception.
India is the second largest steel producer and consumer in the world with total structural steel market estimated to exceed $20 Billion by 2030, with applications across sectors including Construction, Energy, FMCG, Transmission, Telecom, Buildings, Pharma, Petrochemical, Oil & Gas, Ethanol, Manufacturing etc. However, current steel fabrication market is highly concentrated with 90%+ fabricators being MSMEs who lack technology, financing and access to large clients leading to massive underutilization of fabrication capacity in India. As a result, most corporates are dependent on large traditional manufacturers with fixed capacities leading to long lead times and high costs. Fabrication Bazar, through its tech driven platform, bridges the gap between such clients and under-utilized fabricators all over India.
Riverstone Capital, a boutique Investment Bank based in India, acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Ben & Gaws for the transaction.