It has been a tough year for startups. What were some of the challenges your company faced and how did you tackle these?
Global phenomena such as supply chain issues and escalating energy costs are something that all industries have to deal with. In order to proactively tackle the supply chain issue, we took the necessary steps of building a significant inventory of all critical raw materials. As for escalating energy costs, we absorbed them into our product pricing but only partially so as not to put too much of a financial burden on our customers.
What are your expectations from 2023? Will some of the growth drivers kick in again or will it continue to be a cautious year as well?
Our new manufacturing site will be fully operational in early 2023, where we are launching the production of five new pharmaceutical advanced intermediates for the first time in India.
Please share more on how 2022 panned out for Aether Industries in terms of revenue targets?
Our growth has been robust. Our revenue grew 33 per cent in FY 2022 as compared to FY 2021. Our company has grown at a CAGR of 53 per cent in the five fiscal years between 2018 and 2022. We also successfully launched our IPO in June 2022.
What are some of your plans for 2023 and the areas of interest/ investment in the year ahead?
We have undertaken a triple expansion of our R&D (Research and Development) centre. We are also shaping up plans and will start initial civil construction for additional two new green-field manufacturing sites in 2023. Our current single production site contributes 85 per cent of our current revenues; Site 5 will be 12 times our current production site.
What things you had to do differently in 2022 especially given some of the external challenges in the year that ranged from founder troubles to restrained investment and large-scale layoffs?
Our company in 2022 has entered into what we believe is our third phase i.e. “Build to Scale” where we will execute significant expansion of infrastructure across all areas of R&D, pilot plant, and manufacturing operations, accompanied by the corresponding overall growth of the company.
Winner: Aman Desai
Role: Co-founder and Director, Aether Industries
Age: 39
Sector: Research and Manufacturing in Fine / Speciality Chemicals
