From DRDO to Dinosaurs: India’s listed 3D printing agency makes client pivot

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With 200 printers put in and a roadmap to scale to 1,000 inside six months, Brahma is already producing as much as 10,000 items per week, with ambitions of hitting 50,000. The first large guess below this mannequin is Winglets, a line of totally customizable, eco-friendly animal toys designed for kids and adults alike.

“We need to be the creator of creators,” mentioned Chandalia. “Brahma is a brand new mannequin for Indian manufacturing, the place design meets demand immediately, with out tooling, moulds or lengthy lead instances.”

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Winglets will span 5 classes, from cattle to fantasy figures like unicorns and dinosaurs, with 75 inventory holding items (SKUs) to begin with. Each toy is made utilizing PLA (polylactic acid) filament developed in-house, and purchasers can customise measurement and color, with bundles obtainable on-line and in-store. The firm plans to launch the vary on Amazon US and is in talks with international patrons seeking to scale back dependence on Chinese provide chains.

A inventory holding unit is a singular alphanumeric code that corporations allocate to every distinct product they promote to establish and monitor their stock internally.

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But as WOL3D goes from enabling creators to changing into one, scaling such a mannequin comes with clear challenges.

For one, the Indian marketplace for 3D-printed client merchandise remains to be in its infancy. While use-cases in industrial prototyping, schooling and décor have matured, classes like toys stay untested at scale. “Mass customization is a compelling thought however market schooling, value sensitivity and logistics of high-SKU stock may develop into actual hurdles,” mentioned an trade govt monitoring the section.

Chandalia agrees that manufacturing is simply one-half of the equation. “Selling is the true take a look at. It’s one factor to create, fairly one other to transform that into demand,” he mentioned, including that the corporate is specializing in impulse-driven classes like toys, presents and small house merchandise, not need-based purchases.

Another problem lies in sustaining the economics of 3D printing at quantity. Traditional toy factories obtain scale by way of injection moulding and low materials prices. While 3D printing presents flexibility, it nonetheless requires excessive printer uptime, constant uncooked materials provide and client willingness to pay a premium for personalization. WOL3D’s mannequin banks on rising demand for differentiated, eco-friendly toys, notably from city Indian dad and mom and international patrons.

To handle scale, WOL3D is constructing capability earlier than hitting retail. The Brahma farm is being readied to supply 50,000 items weekly. The firm can be contemplating finding future items in subsidy-backed industrial zones equivalent to these promoted by the Maharashtra authorities’s toy cluster coverage.

Chandalia additionally plans to spin off Brahma as a separate subsidiary to allow sharper model focus and clear up valuations. “We need to maintain WOL3D because the machine and supplies spine, and let Brahma develop as a product-first client model,” he mentioned.

The journey thus far has been swift. From importing six machines in 2017 to now operating 9 expertise centres and supplying to Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and over 7,000 faculties, WOL3D has constructed a full-fledged ecosystem. It listed on the NSE Emerge platform in September 2023, raised ₹19 crore, and closed FY25 with ₹49.3 crore in income and ₹5.59 crore in web revenue.

But client playbooks are completely different from institutional gross sales. “There are not any playbooks right here, we’re writing ours,” Chandalia mentioned.

As it tries to place itself because the Lego or Apple of India’s 3D printing trade, the corporate is aware of the street forward can be extra demanding than a filament run. But if it succeeds, Brahma may effectively develop into the blueprint for India’s additive manufacturing future, one Wiggly toy at a time.