Tatas up game in start-up league

After launching 2 tech ventures in 2016, Tata Industries is ready to take 4 pilot projects to market

A turnaround expert at the Tata group, K R S Jamwal, 52, is now piloting several new-age businesses across solar energy, health care and food tech. 

One of the companies, Flisom, makes flexible solar modules and has received orders from an airship maker in Europe. Inzpera Healthsciences, a pharmaceutical product company, helps patients deal with lifestyle issues. Another that Jamwal is working on is a digital health care business, which aims to bring all service providers on one platform. A technology-led food venture is still under wraps.

“Between 2005 and 2012, we saw relatively few business launches. Now we are incubating several so that in the next year or two you will see more frequent launches,” said Jamwal, the executive director of Tata Industries.

He launched two start-ups last year, including big data company Tata iQ and the omnichannel e-tail venture CliQ. Between 2005 and 2012, Tata Industries saw only three launches.

Jamwal, a Tata group veteran, started his career building hotels and flight kitchens for Indian Hotels and then got into a strategic role at Tata Sons under former chairman Ratan Tata. 

When he joined Tata Industries seven years ago, his first challenge was to turn around or “pivot” three legacy businesses.

This included Tata Advanced Materials (TAML), which turned operationally profitable two years ago after being in business for 25 years. The carbon fibre composites maker did not find adequate demand in India, and was struggling. Jamwal focused on exports, and turned around the business. Today, it has a presence in the domestic market too, with demand from the aerospace and defence industries. 

The company has just supplied 50,000 bullet-proof jackets to the Indian Army. Also, it claims it supplies parts to the Indian Space Research Organisation for almost every rocket that it launches. 

“In the next two to three years, TAML would get enough scale and we would begin to look for dividends,” said Jamwal. The company is targeting a $500-million annual turnover in eight years.

The other two turnaround stories include pharmaceutical venture Advinus, now focused on contract research after moving from a growth strategy built around drug discovery. 

Jamwal also turned around logistics firm Drive India Enterprise Solutions (DIESL), and sold it to TVS Logistics in 2015, as the group discovered that logistics was no longer part of its growth priorities.

DIESL and Advinus, both launched in 2005 before Jamwal came to Tata Industries, are two of the three businesses launched in the 2005-2012 period. The third business, launched in 2012, is the digital classroom solutions provider Tata Class Edge, which is also profitable. 

“In some cases we are at the business thesis, in some cases at pilot, while some cases are at commercialisation or at scale up,” said Jamwal talking about incubating the tech-led start-ups at the Tatas’ start-up factory, set up in 1945. 

In the early 1980s, its mandate was recast to promote the Tatas’ entry into new and high-tech businesses as a junior holding company for the group, while Tata Sons remains the primary holding company for the $104-billion turnover group. 

Tata Industries’ successful ventures of the past include Tata AutoComp Systems that was sold to Tata Motors, besides telephone service provider Tata Teleservices and design firm Tata Elxsi that were sold to Tata Sons. Tata Elxsi today boasts a Rs 4,631-crore market capitalisation. 

“If a business becomes large enough, it gets a shot to be on its own,” said Jamwal, who is aiming for his next success that is similar to Tata Elxsi.

For now, he has pinned hopes on Flisom, which is targeting rooftop solar products — the next big thing in renewable energy. The company has technology that allows it to manufacture solar cells on plastic in a roll-to-roll manufacturing process. The company plans to get up a 200-Mw-a-year production plant in the next two years, which will be able to compete with Chinese rivals, said Jamwal.