Every hardware founder in India knows the same headache: a brilliant product design, and then months lost chasing vendors. One factory for the circuit board, another for the enclosure, a third for assembly — each with its own quote, its own timeline and its own idea of quality. Bengaluru-based Karkhana was built to end that chase, turning India’s fragmented factory floor into something a founder can order from as easily as booking a cloud server.
Founded in 2018 by Sonam Motwani and Karthik M.C., Karkhana started as a technology platform connecting original equipment manufacturers with a network of contract manufacturers across India. The company says its platform takes a product from prototyping to mass production — sourcing, engineering, quality checks and logistics handled in one place — so hardware teams can scale without building their own factory operations.
The factory, on demand
The idea is simple and powerful: manufacturing capacity, available on tap. Through its platform, the company says customers can upload a design, get engineering feedback and a transparent quote, and track production across its network of more than 600 certified suppliers. Its services span CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, injection moulding, 3D printing and, increasingly, full electronics manufacturing — printed circuit board assembly, wire harnesses and complete box builds.
The company’s Automated Costing Engine shows the same philosophy applied to pricing itself: the engine analyses an uploaded CAD model and predicts machining time and cost, so a quote that once took days of back-and-forth arrives quickly, with a transparent breakdown. The company says more than 5 million components have been produced through its network so far, for over 100 customers across aerospace, automotive, energy, medical devices and electric vehicles.
From matchmaker to manufacturer
For its first seven years, Karkhana largely operated as an aggregator. That changed with its acquisition of Micron EMS Tech, a Bengaluru electronics manufacturing services firm with more than 15 years of shop-floor experience. The acquisition, reported at around Rs 10 crore, adds a 40,000-plus square foot plant with high-speed surface-mount lines, through-hole PCB assembly and more than 10 box-build lines — bringing printed circuit board assembly, advanced testing and system-level manufacturing in-house.
More Read
As co-founder and CEO Sonam Motwani put it, electronics accounts for 60 to 70 per cent of the cost of most products, so owning capacity in electronics became essential as products grew more complex. The combined team now numbers more than 150 people across manufacturing, engineering, quality and operations, and the company says it expects 60 to 70 per cent of production to happen in-house, with the rest continuing through its supplier network.
What it builds, and for whom
Karkhana today works with more than 25 original equipment manufacturers, and the company says most of its revenue comes from three sectors: automotive electronics, industrial electronics and connected consumer devices. Electric mobility alone — charging infrastructure, battery packs and motor controllers — contributes 40 to 50 per cent of revenue. Its teams have built EV battery packs, IoT devices, control units and complex box builds, often across multiple product variants at once.
The same platform thinking extends to the smallest details of execution: a dedicated project manager per programme, design-for-manufacturing feedback before a build begins, and door-to-door logistics and customs clearance for finished goods. The company says its customers range from deep-tech innovators to established brands, including names such as Pidilite, P&G, Jio and Bosch.
The road ahead: bigger, and designed in India
Karkhana is now targeting Rs 200 crore in annual recurring revenue by FY27, nearly tripling its current scale, driven by new customers and higher-value manufacturing work. The company also plans to expand exports to the United States and Europe as global companies diversify their supply chains — and, longer term, to evolve from contract manufacturer to original design manufacturer, developing its own reference designs and product intellectual property.
It is a fitting ambition for a company whose pitch has always been about making Indian manufacturing easy to buy. From a marketplace matching founders with factories, Karkhana is becoming the factory itself — and, in the process, helping more of the world’s hardware get designed, engineered and built in India.
Keep reading: Inside EPACK Prefab, the Indian Company Building Warehouses, Data Centres and Hospitals at Factory Speed · The Cloud Factory: Inside Frigate, the Trichy Startup Turning Small-Town Workshops Into Global Suppliers · More Manufacturing & Engineering stories
Like stories like this? Add Exceptional Technology as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting in your search results and Discover feed.
