The Impossible Machine: How Two Indian Engineers Built Ethereal Machines (Blume Fund III) - a Manufacturing Juggernaut Against All Odds
When Kaushik Mudda and Navin Jain showcased their five-axis CNC machines, potential Indian buyers were quick to dismiss them: "Only Germans and Japanese can do this. Indians, let alone youngsters, can't make such machines."
This cynicism fueled Kaushik and Navin to build Ethereal Machines. To shine on the world stage, India needed homegrown manufacturing technology to compete globally. They wanted to create an ecosystem that built complex components without relying on international suppliers since they were prohibitively expensive and faced months-long waiting periods.
Today, Ethereal Machines operates a bustling 55,000-square-foot facility in Bangalore with 60 sophisticated CNC machines running 24/7 across three shifts. The company has experienced fivefold revenue growth in the past year, expanded its team to 300 people, and is now building a new mega-factory on a seven-acre plot to meet explosive demand for precision manufacturing.
Looking ahead, Ethereal's growth strategy leverages multiple powerful levers:
Scaling their "Machining as a Service" model that eliminates the friction of machine purchases and creates recurring revenue from precision component manufacturing
Deepening relationships with existing million-dollar accounts that started with small test orders
Maximizing capacity utilization through 24/7 operations across three shifts, dramatically increasing margins
Developing next-generation machines for different market segments while building proprietary AI tools to predict manufacturing times and optimize workflows
Expanding into critical industries like aerospace, healthcare, and consumer electronics with clients including HAL, BEL, and Collins Aerospace
After overcoming extraordinary technical barriers—each five-axis machine contains about 3,200 parts with precision requirements beyond what the Indian supply chain could provide—Ethereal is positioning itself at the intersection of precision manufacturing and India's manufacturing renaissance. Their vision goes beyond building a successful company to addressing a critical national challenge: making India self-reliant in manufacturing and planting the Indian flag firmly on the global manufacturing map.