Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) opportunity in India alone is more than $100 billion: Rapidise CEO

Globally, the strongest ODM ecosystem has largely been concentrated in China, with some presence in Korea and Taiwan, while a great deal of the R&D talent is Indian, says Rapidise CEO Brijesh Kamani

Could you take us through your professional journey, the thinking behind Rapidise, the hurdles you identified in the industry, and the milestones the company has reached so far?

My background is in electronics and communication. I later completed an MTech in Software Systems from BITS Pilani and an MBA in business and finance from IIM Ahmedabad. I worked across electronics product design, connected products and innovation with organisations including Cisco, Continental and Rockwell Collins, with end-customer exposure that included Airbus. I also worked with customers across the US, Europe, Japan and Israel.

What shaped my thinking was seeing the product journey from different sides – hardware, embedded software, applications, programme management, quality systems and mass production. Taking a product from an idea to the market is far more complex than it appears.

When I counted the services and disciplines involved in taking an innovation-led product to mass production, the number was more than 85. In most cases, those capabilities are spread across several vendors. When something fails, one vendor can blame another, but ultimately the founder or enterprise customer suffers because the product does not reach the market.

That became the starting point for Rapidise: how do we improve that success ratio? I wanted to bring design and manufacturing together, bridge the design-for-manufacturing gap and give every product we touch a stronger chance of becoming a revenue stream for the customer.

Globally, the strongest ODM ecosystem has largely been concentrated in China, with some presence in Korea and Taiwan, while a great deal of the R&D talent is Indian. So my question was: why not build an end-to-end ODM from India?

The thought had been developing for years, but the inflection point came around a year and a half ago, when we started bringing the design-engineering and manufacturing pieces together. Within about a year, the combined engineering and manufacturing team crossed 1,500 people. We have built Rapidise as a bootstrapped, cash-positive, EBITDA-positive and self-sustained business, and in our second year we are aiming to roughly double the previous year’s revenue.

How is Rapidise strengthening its capabilities to meet rising demand in Vision AI, IoT and high-precision electronics as electronics manufacturing expands?

You first need a foundation that can scale. On manufacturing, we have concentrated our own facilities in Manesar so the same talent pool, automation, processes and quality culture can be shared.

The first infrastructure is already set up and is intended to support around Rs 800 crore of output. The second facility, also in Manesar, is being built to support around Rs 4,000 crore of revenue output after the planned capital investment. A third infrastructure is part of our vertical-integration plan and is intended to support another roughly Rs 2,000 crore of throughput as more component manufacturing moves within India.

R&D is different because the best talent is distributed. Bengaluru is strong for hardware, Ahmedabad for embedded software, Pune and Chennai for automotive, and Mumbai for sales and marketing. So rather than force everything into one city, we have built capabilities across Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon and other locations.

We also brought in around 25 senior leaders with entrepreneurial experience and given them clear responsibility and freedom to operate.

We are seeing strong interest from enterprise customers in India, Japan, the US and Europe. We still maintain supply-chain links with China because significant electronics raw material and components come from there. As India’s ecosystem develops, we expect more manufacturing to shift here.

You mentioned capacities around Rs 4,000 crore and Rs 2,000 crore. Why those numbers? Is there a ceiling on how far Rapidise can scale?

No, those numbers are not a ceiling. They are simply the foundation we are building at this stage.

Taken together, the current infrastructure plan is intended to make us ready to execute roughly Rs 7,000 crore in a year. We are creating capacity in advance so that infrastructure does not become the bottleneck as the business grows.

The opportunity is much larger. In my view, the ODM opportunity in India alone is more than $100 billion, with the US, Europe and Japan also in focus. So, Rs 7,000 crore is a starting platform, not the final ambition.

With such an aggressive growth plan, what are the biggest hurdles or growth blockers you face, and how are you managing them?

I would put the challenges in three buckets. The first is multi-stakeholder management. With a large enterprise, you may be dealing with 50 people across functions, locations and countries rather than one decision-maker. We address that by mapping key people in our organisation to key stakeholders on the customer side, so communication and accountability are distributed properly.

The second is the speed at which we are jumping milestones. Normally, a company reaches one revenue level, stabilises and then moves to the next. We are sometimes jumping three or four milestones together. That means the mindset and execution capability of the organisationhave to grow at the same speed.We are investing in entrepreneurial-mindset programmes, coaching and mentoring, while also bringing in C-level and VP-level executives who have operated at larger scale. As responsibilities grow, delegation and decision-making have to evolve too.

The third challenge is the customer response itself. We are seeing strong interest because customers see an Indian ODM that is actually designing in India rather than only doing CKD or SKD assembly. That is a good challenge, but we still have to be selective. We want to grow only at the pace at which we can execute well.

In terms of competition, who do you see as the biggest competitor that could pose a growth risk to Rapidise?

My philosophy is slightly different: how can I make my competitor my customer? We first built horizontally from design through manufacturing. Now we are going deeper through vertical integration in areas such as wiring harnesses, mechanical manufacturing, camera-module manufacturing and display manufacturing.

Once you build those capabilities, a company that looks like a competitor in one part of the market can become your customer in another part of the value chain. I prefer to look at competitors that way rather than only as threats.

India’s electronics production and exports have expanded sharply. Where do you see the next wave of innovation and growth, and which areas is Rapidise focusing on?

For the next one to five years, we are focused on three verticals: automotive, security and surveillance, and networking and computing.

Automotive is a major localisation opportunity. Electronics content is rising across instrument clusters, infotainment systems, dash cameras, body-control units, ECUs and camera modules. Features such as blind-spot, rear and surround-view cameras are increasingly becoming standard, expanding the electronics opportunity in every vehicle.

But the larger shift has to be from assembly to actual design and manufacturing in India. Some players have started with SKD or CKD approaches. We want to go deeper. For years, people have seen products marked ‘Designed in California’. We want products that say ‘Designed in India, Made in India’. We are already manufacturing electronics here and exporting some of that production even to China.

The second vertical is security and surveillance, especially camera products. A camera is not only an imaging device; it is also a sensor. Once you combine that sensor with AI and machine learning, you can derive much more value from the data. That is why we are investing heavily in the camera and vision ecosystem.

The third is networking and computing. India is seeing major data-centre momentum, but we want to go deeper into server technology, manufacturing and compute infrastructure. We have already set up server manufacturing lines at our Sector 3 plant.

Beyond five years, I see drones, robotics and humanoids becoming important as these technologies become more commoditised and move into larger-volume applications.

At the same time, customer demands are changing quickly. Over the next three to five years, agility, flexibility and optimisation will be key. That thinking is also reflected in a line we use at Rapidise: ‘Easy path creates noise; impossible path creates value.’

AI is reshaping almost every sector. How do you see it changing the ODM industry, and how is Rapidise using AI inside its own manufacturing operations?

AI is a game changer, but what matters is its use.

In our plant, vision-based AI is used across the manufacturing process as part of our Industry 5.0 initiatives. We use it for monitoring and PPE detection, PCB inspection, and on the assembly floor to check whether the operator is following the required SOP.

We use vision again after assembly. Our end-of-line testers are built by us and are vision-based, while optical AI systems at the packaging stage check the package and accessories before dispatch.

So AI is not an isolated tool for us. It creates end-to-end traceability and quality inspection. That has helped us achieve an extremely low rejection level, with almost no manufacturing-quality rejection coming back after products leave the factory.

The principle is to build systems that prevent failures rather than only detect them later. We treat that as a continuous Kaizen process.

What government policies or interventions would help the ODM and electronics-manufacturing ecosystem become more competitive and grow faster?

PLI has already been a positive step and has created momentum in electronics manufacturing. The next big opportunity, in my view, is stronger DLI – Design Linked Incentive – support.

PLI and the Atmanirbhar Bharat manufacturing push have helped India make more electronics, but in many cases the technology is still coming from outside the country or manufacturing is happening through SKD-type models. Stronger DLI support can encourage companies to build the actual design capability in India and capture more value beyond assembly.

The other important area is import-export and customs management for raw materials and components. In the ODM journey, quality and time-to-market are critical. We can control quality through engineering, AI and strong processes, but time-to-market is still affected because many components have to be imported from China and other locations.

Faster and more flexible processes around component imports and customs can help Indian ODMs reduce that friction and scale more competitively.

India has been expanding its network of free-trade agreements. How do you see those FTAs aligning with Rapidise’s global ambitions and international growth?

I see more FTAs as a very good initiative, especially when they are combined with PLI, DLI and other policy support.

An FTA is not only about finished-goods trade. It can also create a framework for foreign investment and technology partnerships. A company with technology may be more confident about setting up a joint venture or manufacturing plant in India if the trade and investment environment is supportive.

But the economics still have to work because India is extremely cost-competitive. That is where manufacturing and design incentives can help during the initial phase.

The Indian consumer is also gradually moving from looking only for the cheapest product towards expecting better products and quality. FTAs and the right incentives together can therefore create a much larger practical advantage for companies designing and manufacturing from India.

Looking a decade ahead, and towards India’s 2047 ambitions, how do you see electronics manufacturing and the ODM sector evolving? What would you tell emerging entrepreneurs in the industry?

India has tremendous potential, and I do not think we have fully realised how large the opportunity is.

We have skills, labour and a policy environment that is moving in a positive direction. There is also a global China-plus-one shift, with companies actively looking for alternatives. India is strongly placed because it combines two important advantages: a deep talent pool and a very large domestic consumption market. If you manufacture here, you are not producing only for exports; you also have a large internal market.

More measures that specifically encourage ODMs can make the opportunity stronger. One of our objectives is to build a successful benchmark that motivates more entrepreneurs to enter the ecosystem.

Many people in India still do not clearly understand what an ODM is or how much value the model can create. I think that will change over the next five years, just as awareness around semiconductors has grown. As that understanding improves, domestic and export revenue can both grow significantly, and the ODM ecosystem can become much larger than people currently expect.