This startup is putting India on the global map of advanced manufacturing | Fabheads | BP2B S2 Ep.9
Dhinesh Kanagaraj (guest), Unknown Host (host)
In this episode of Best Place To Build, featuring Dhinesh Kanagaraj and Unknown Host, This startup is putting India on the global map of advanced manufacturing | Fabheads | BP2B S2 Ep.9 explores fabheads automates composite additive manufacturing to scale India’s high-performance parts Fabheads focuses on composite materials like carbon fiber, Kevlar, and glass fiber, which offer high strength-to-weight and safety benefits but are still largely manufactured by hand layup today.
Fabheads automates composite additive manufacturing to scale India’s high-performance parts
Fabheads focuses on composite materials like carbon fiber, Kevlar, and glass fiber, which offer high strength-to-weight and safety benefits but are still largely manufactured by hand layup today.
Dhinesh argues composites have effectively been “additively manufactured” for decades (layer-by-layer layup and filament winding), and the real leap now is automating that additive process.
The company built both a new material-processing approach and a proprietary machine/process, taking ~4 years to reach an MVP and proving viability despite investor skepticism about long hardware timelines.
Fabheads operates mainly as Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS), producing parts (currently up to ~1.5 m) for drones, ISRO-related components, and robotics, while selectively placing machines in academia for adoption and talent-building.
A core strategic thesis is national capability: India cannot reliably scale aerospace/defense/drone composite production without owning the automation technology and reducing dependence on scarce skilled technicians and restricted imports.
Key Takeaways
Composites’ bottleneck isn’t material performance—it’s manufacturing scalability.
Carbon fiber and glass fiber deliver exceptional strength-to-weight and safety, but the dominant process (hand layup) is slow, labor-heavy, and hard to scale for large programs like drones, rockets, and aircraft.
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For composites, “additive manufacturing” is fundamentally automation of a legacy additive process.
Dhinesh’s framing is that composites have always been built layer-by-layer; what Fabheads is doing is making that additive process robotic, repeatable, and faster than manual alternatives.
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Directionality (anisotropy) is the reason composite manufacturing can’t simply copy metal/plastic methods.
Because fiber orientation determines strength, processes like casting or typical machining don’t translate; manufacturing must place fibers deliberately, which is why automation of placement is high-impact.
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Deep-tech hardware often requires solving the materials stack before the machine stack.
Fabheads first had to convert off-the-shelf composite inputs into a usable form for their process; material processing alone took ~2. ...
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Investor fit matters: technical believers fund long timelines better than hype-driven capital.
Early funding came from engineer/industrialist angels who could understand why a 4-year MVP is normal in hardware, unlike typical software expectations.
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Manufacturing-as-a-Service can be a practical go-to-market when customers can’t retool easily.
Fabheads shifted away from primarily selling machines to running their own production and supplying parts, reducing friction for clients who would otherwise need to redesign factory flows.
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Owning advanced manufacturing tech is a strategic national capability, not just a business opportunity.
Dhinesh emphasizes India’s shortage of trained composite technicians and the difficulty of importing sensitive/limited technologies, making domestic automation essential for defense and aerospace scale.
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Notable Quotes
““At Fabheads, we primarily focus on… composite materials… they just feel like plastics, but they're as strong as stainless steel.””
— Dhinesh Kanagaraj
““Every single wind turbine blade… [is] hand laid… 50, 60 people will be sitting on top of one big mold…””
— Dhinesh Kanagaraj
““Along with us, there are only about seven companies across the world who do this… we are the only ones doing it in India for the first time.””
— Dhinesh Kanagaraj
““Persevere and be flexible about it, not just be stubborn. You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect some things will change.””
— Dhinesh Kanagaraj
““It was almost like two startups together.””
— Dhinesh Kanagaraj
Questions Answered in This Episode
What exactly is Fabheads’ automated composite process (e.g., fiber placement method, curing approach), and how does it differ from traditional layup and filament winding?
Fabheads focuses on composite materials like carbon fiber, Kevlar, and glass fiber, which offer high strength-to-weight and safety benefits but are still largely manufactured by hand layup today.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
You mentioned composites can see ~5% rejection rates even in good shops—what quality controls or in-process sensing does your system use to drive that down?
Dhinesh argues composites have effectively been “additively manufactured” for decades (layer-by-layer layup and filament winding), and the real leap now is automating that additive process.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Why did you choose Manufacturing-as-a-Service over selling machines—what customer objections or economics forced that pivot?
The company built both a new material-processing approach and a proprietary machine/process, taking ~4 years to reach an MVP and proving viability despite investor skepticism about long hardware timelines.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
You can currently make parts up to ~1.5 meters; what are the hardest engineering constraints to scaling to aircraft-sized structures (gantry size, accuracy, curing time, material handling)?
Fabheads operates mainly as Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS), producing parts (currently up to ~1. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
When you say the technology ‘cannot actually import’ into India, is that due to export controls, cost, lack of vendor availability, or integration know-how—and how does that shape your roadmap?
A core strategic thesis is national capability: India cannot reliably scale aerospace/defense/drone composite production without owning the automation technology and reducing dependence on scarce skilled technicians and restricted imports.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
at least from my perspective and my experience, it is, uh, that, uh, uh, you keep getting challenges, like, uh, uh, but you need to persevere it through. We are coming in with our own newer, better automated manufacturing process to, in a way, revolutionizing this world. Persevere and be flexible about it, not just be stubborn. You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect some things will change. We felt that we could crack it. We knew that we had the ability from-- in terms of technology, capability, engineering-wise, we knew that we would be able to crack it. The material part, we have cracked, and the critical part of the mission also we have cracked. With that, we were able to go to investors and showcase and able to get the funding.
Hi, this is Amrit. We are at IIT Madras, my alma mater, and India's top university for people who like to build. We are here to meet some builders, ask them: What are you building? What does it take to build? And what makes IIT Madras the best place to build? [music] Hello, and welcome to The Best Place to Build Podcast. Today, we are sitting with Dhinesh from a company called Fabheads, started in twenty sixteen, but recently in the news in twenty twenty-five because they've raised a lot of funding. They are in a space called additive manufacturing, which I'm personally very curious to, because my subject in s- college was mechanical engineering. Uh, hi, Dhinesh. Welcome to the podcast. Um, Dhinesh, uh, can you tell us what Fabheads does?
Yeah. So at Fabheads, we primarily focus on a group of materials called composite materials. So these are materials like carbon fiber, Kevlar, glass, and so on. So this is a group of materials that has been only around since twentieth century. But, uh, uh, in spite of being for around for a j- very short time, uh, they have very amazing properties, that they just feel like plastics, but they're as strong as stainless steel. And they are also incredibly safe, uh, they, uh, uh, corrosion resistance, and so on. So because of several of these magic qualities coming into one single s- uh, material, they are, you know, uh, becoming the go-to material across, say, shipping, aerospace, defense, and a lot of sectors. Even, uh, over titanium, you might have heard of, um, biomedical implants, right? The hip replacement and so on. Traditionally, people have been using titanium by and large, but now people are slowly moving towards carbon fiber-based systems. So, like, those are slowly replacing a lot of materials, but if you look at how these components are fabricated, they are done by manual manufacturing process. So that is where we are coming in with our own newer, better, uh, automated manufacturing process to, in a way, revolutionizing this world. Yeah.
So you manufacture, uh, advanced material? No, com- components made of advanced materials-
Yeah
... right?
Correct.
Okay. In additive way, what does that mean?
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