Bengaluru-based Venttup has raised $3 million in a pre-Series A round co-led by Rainmatter, Zerodha's investment arm, and Unicorn India Ventures. The startup, which calls itself an "Industries 5.0" company and was incubated at Kerala Startup Mission, makes critical and precision components and subassemblies for industrial customers on a manufacturing-as-a-service model.
Rather than produce everything itself, Venttup pairs in-house engineering with a network of MSME manufacturing partners: a customer brings a component requirement, and Venttup handles design, specification standardisation, rapid prototyping, testing, validation and contract manufacturing. Its capabilities span precision machining, casting and forging, sheet metal fabrication, box builds, special purpose machines, industrial automation and robotics, alongside reverse engineering and indigenisation services that build local alternatives to imported parts.
The company reports revenue of Rs 10 crore in FY26, up fivefold since its undisclosed seed round from Unicorn India Ventures in September 2024, when it reported Rs 2 crore in annual recurring revenue. Over the past 12 months it has added more than 15 large customers and built an opportunity pipeline of around Rs 30 crore across new energy, mobility and smart infrastructure.
The fresh capital will fund engineering hires, precision manufacturing and rapid prototyping infrastructure - including a new Bengaluru facility for precision machining, turning and sheet metal work aimed at energy transition, defence, aerospace and space applications - and AI adoption for B2B sourcing, supplier intelligence and operational efficiency.
Venttup was founded by Sandeep Nair (CEO), M. Wasim Ankli (COO) and Joseph Panakkal (CMO), whose earlier stints include Hitachi Energy, Siemens Energy, L&T and Kalpataru Power. Rainmatter's Abhinav Singh Negi, who leads climate and deeptech at the firm, said its portfolio companies consistently struggled to find partners who could manage the transition from validation to production - the gap Venttup is built to fill.
FundForge Insight: India's hardware ambition has a missing middle: plenty of prototypes, too few partners who can turn them into production-ready components at spec. Venttup's fivefold revenue jump in a year suggests OEMs and deeptech startups will pay for that bridge, and Rainmatter's thesis is that the bridge is itself a business. The risks sit in execution - a capital-hungry facility build-out and an MSME partner network whose quality Venttup must guarantee - but a Rs 30 crore pipeline says the demand side is already convinced.
Sources: Indian Startup News (October 30, 2026) and Inc42 (October 29, 2026). Figures as announced by the company and investors. This article is for information only and is not investment advice.
Image: A CNC machining centre by Elma Verhouden, public domain via Wikimedia Commons; converted to black and white. Shown for illustration - not a Venttup facility.
