How Aravind Melligeri pioneered India's aerospace manufacturing renaissance

From a small engineering office in Bengaluru to building India’s foremost aerospace manufacturing ecosystem, Aravind Melligeri’s journey embodies the transformation of Indian manufacturing. As chairman of IPO-bound Aequs, Melligeri has pioneered a vision that extends far beyond conventional business metrics, revolutionising how manufacturing operates in India.

Born and raised in Hubballi, Karnataka, Melligeri’s story is one of determination and resilience. Having lost his father at the age of one, he was raised by his mother and cousins in a middle-class family. His early education at a local municipal school laid the foundation for his future endeavours, leading him to the National Institute of Technology Karnataka for his mechanical engineering degree. A full scholarship to Penn State University brought him to America, where he pursued a Master’s degree in robotics.

Though he initially followed the conventional path of working as a contractor at Ford, Melligeri’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to co-found QuEST Global with his childhood friend Ajit Prabhu in 1997. The company, which began as an engineering services provider, would later evolve into what is now known as Aequs.

What sets Melligeri apart is his visionary approach to manufacturing. Nearly 20 years ago, he adopted what might be called the ‘China approach’ to manufacturing – creating complete ecosystems rather than isolated facilities – long before it became a recognised model in India. “This forward-thinking strategy allowed me to build vertically integrated manufacturing hubs that maximise efficiency and value creation,” says Melligiri.

Central to his business philosophy is the concept of ‘in-country value addition’. When he began aerospace manufacturing, only about 20 per cent of the value was created within India. He set out to transform this by establishing an entire ecosystem, where raw materials could be processed into finished products entirely within the country, thereby capturing 100 per cent of the value domestically.

Perhaps most revolutionary of Melligeri’s belief was taking jobs to people rather than people migrating for jobs. Instead of centralising operations in the already-crowded urban centres like Bengaluru, he deliberately chose to establish manufacturing hubs in Belagavi, Hubballi and Koppal in North Karnataka. “These ecosystems of efficiency were strategically located to tap into available talent pools, while revitalising less-developed regions, providing employment to those who would otherwise have had to migrate for opportunities”, he says.

Focus on North Karnataka

Under his leadership, the Aequs group has transformed Belagavi into a manufacturing hub, creating India’s first aerospace Special Economic Zone spanning 250 acres. The company has expanded into toys and consumer goods, establishing a 400-acre toy manufacturing cluster in Koppal and a 400-acre consumer durables manufacturing hub in Hubballi, potentially creating 40,000 direct jobs and indirect employment for about 200,000 people in North Karnataka.

Northern Karnataka secured investment proposals of about $54 billion in the recent Karnataka Global Investor Meet 2025. Investors included global giants, such as Germany’s Bosch, Japan’s Toyota Motor and Taiwan-based Foxconn (Apple’s contract manufacturer), who wanted to diversify their manufacturing operations away from China.

Aequs has attracted investments of about $500 million and is expected to attract over $1.5 billion in the near future from a clutch of global investors, as per industry sources. Aequs has already attracted global investors such as Amicus Capital, Amansa Capital, Steadview Capital, Catamaran (the family office of Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy), Sparta group and the investment office of Desh Deshpande, among prominent investors.

Melligeri’s vision extends beyond profit margins to creating sustainable economic value in India’s Tier II and III cities. His approach to manufacturing combines global standards with local talent, proving that world-class manufacturing excellence can emerge from India’s heartland.

Today, Aequs is a diversified global manufacturing platform, providing vertically integrated product solutions for the aerospace, consumer industries including high precision electronics components. By leveraging its manufacturing ecosystems, Aequs reliably delivers supply chain efficiencies to its global customer base across the four industry verticals it operates in. It maintains manufacturing facilities across India, France and the US and employs over 4,000 people.

In India, its manufacturing operations are concentrated in the North Karnataka region in the Tiers II & III cities of Belagavi (aerospace), Hubballi (consumer durables and high-precision electronics) and Koppal (toys). Its overseas manufacturing units are located in Paris, Texas in the US and Chole in France.

Since 2006, Aequs has developed a local-global manufacturing strategy that has been balancing capacity and capability to explore emerging opportunities from global OEMs. In a country that did not have the infrastructure to build detailed aerospace components initially, Aequs today makes complex aero parts for the most demanding requirements.

Nose-to-tail

Aequs counts most global aerospace OEMs among its customers. It is the first company in India to assemble ‘plug doors’ and ‘over-wing exit doors’ for commercial aircraft OEMs through its aerostructures unit. Boasting of the largest machining capacity in India of over 1.4 million machining hours per year, Aequs’ aerospace product portfolio consists of several thousand nose-to-tail parts for these OEMs, which include the likes of Airbus, Boeing, Collins and Safran, to name a few.

Aequs also operates two joint venture entities at the BAC to complete the end-to-end aerospace engineering value chain. SQuAD Forging India, an Aequs joint venture with multinational company Aubert & Duval, specialises in forging small to medium-sized aero-structural parts for engines, landing gear and braking system components in aluminium, steel, titanium or nickel-based alloys.

Aerospace Processing India Pvt Ltd (API), a JV with Magellan Aerospace, provides innovative surface treatment solutions for the aerospace industry. API is the first, and only, third-party facility in India to be approved by both Airbus and Boeing.

Aequs counts some of the biggest global brands among its customers, manufacturing and exporting toys to over 66 countries. The company caters to some of the biggest toy OEMs in the industry, like Hasbro, Spin Master and Chicco. Apart from the Belagavi SEZ, Aequs operates units in India’s first global scale toy manufacturing park, the Koppal Toy Cluster (KTC), in North Karnataka.

“We leverage our integrated design-to-product realisation capabilities to make home appliances and high-precision electronics components for global brands from its operations at the Hubballi Consumer Durable Goods (HDC) cluster,” informs Melligeri. “Aequs has an equal joint venture partnership with Tramontina, the Brazilian homeware products company, with a legacy of 113 years to produce cookware and other consumer products. This is the only manufacturing facility outside of the Americas for Tramontina”.

Apart from making products for Tramontina worldwide, the JV makes cookware for other customers in India and abroad. Its portfolio of customers includes the likes of Wonderchef, Milton, Borosil and Bergner.

Aequs is actively expanding its footprint in the global electronics supply chain, notably through its involvement with Apple, as per industry sources. It is also gearing up to supply components for portable computing and smart devices. The finished goods are being sent to Vietnam and China for validation as part of the QC phase.

This development aligns with Apple’s strategy to diversify its supply chain and reduce dependency on China. Talking about the financials, with a strong order book in aerospace and upcoming ATP project, CARE Ratings expects that the revenue of Aequs to grow at a CAGR of 45 per cent, while maintaining PBDIT margins in the range of 16-19 per cent over the near-to-medium term.

Over the last decade under the leadership of Melligeri, the company has built a vertically integrated aerospace ecosystem which delivers end-to-end value streams. The company has been witnessing improvement in revenue from operations and PBDIT since 2021-22. The company’s total operating income improved from Rs552 crore in 2019-20 to Rs969 crore in 2023-24, backed by a healthy order book position in the aerospace segment. With increased revenues, the company earned PBDIT margins of 12.8 per cent in 2023-24, as against 6.04 per cent in 2022-23 (source: CARE Edge Report).

These strategic moves have underscored Aequs’s commitment to enhancing India’ s position in global manufacturing, particularly in high-precision sectors such as electronics, aerospace, and consumer goods. Beyond his business achievements, Melligeri remains committed to social responsibility and community development. Along with his wife Akkamahadevi, he has established various social impact initiatives through the Aequs Foundation, focussing on education, health and hygiene for underprivileged children around Belagavi. His wife serves as chairperson of both the foundation and the Altum Trust, which operates the Indus Altum International School.