Whizzo has acquired 15 million dollars in Series A funding to widen its textile technical platform. The financing was led by Fundamentum, though LB Investment and other current investors, Lightspeed, and BEENEXT participated. The money has empowered the push into advanced manufacturing through this funding. The firm intends to spend the funds on materials science investigation, intellectual property building, and expansion of the supply chain operations throughout Asia. It is also seeking to employ nonwoven technologies and composite specialists. These are imperative areas that enhance the performance of the product and minimise development cycles.
According to founder Shrestha Kukreja, almost 40 percent of the revenue of Whizzo already comes in exports. The company will expand its manufacturing network with new capital in response to the increasing demand across the world. It collaborates with over 120 SME and MSME manufacturers and thinks it will hit above 200 by the year-end. Whizzo is also determined to move even further with exports. The company is already operating in 15 foreign markets and has a target of having more than 30 within the next twelve months. This external orientation, as we think, may assist it to access faster expanding industrial demand outside India.
Technical textiles, civilised materials that are engineered to serve industrial and structural purposes, characterise a market share of more than 250 billion worldwide. The segment is expanding at rates that are in the double digits and is predicted to hit over 400 billion by 2030. However, speedy product development is a problem, and a lack of innovation in the initial stages is a challenge to many manufacturers. Whizzo attempts to fill this gap using the contract development and manufacturing organisation model. It integrates research and prototyping on a single platform as well as large-scale production. The company boasts that this structure reduces turnaround time, and its orders take four times longer than those of other conventional suppliers.
Whizzo was founded in 2024 by an ex-Zetwerk executive and has developed a 65-employee team. Some 10 percent of employees are engaged in research in the areas of polymer science, process engineering, and advanced textiles. It has a materials science lab in Gurugram, which it uses as the basis of its development, and where patent applications will be made as projects grow in maturity. According to the investors, the in-house research in the company generates long-term differentiation. Whizzo concentrates on the manufacturing of deep tech and intellectual property, i.e. in the areas of Ashish Kumar of Fundamentum and Alex Lee of LB Investment. We observe this conglomeration of scientific and scale positioning of Whizzo as a wary participant in the changing technological textile zone in India.
