Innomet Advanced Materials makes the metal powders and high-density tungsten parts that go into things most people never see - the diamond-tipped cutting tools on a factory floor, the radiation shielding inside a hospital CT scanner, the balancing weight in a helicopter rotor, and the metal filament in a 3D printer building a rocket nozzle. It began in 1984 as a small family-run engineering workshop in Hyderabad, then spent four decades moving steadily upstream: first into diamond tools, then backward into the metal powders those tools are made from, and finally into Tungsten Heavy Alloys when it discovered no Indian manufacturer existed to supply the parts its customers needed. The recurring pattern is deliberate - find a product India imports, make it domestically, and if a competitor eventually copies it, move on to the next hard-to-make material rather than fight over price.
Business segments
Two manufacturing divisions built on the same powder-metallurgy backbone - a high-volume metal-powder business that pays the bills, and a smaller but higher-margin tungsten-alloy business that supplies defence and aerospace customers nobody else in India serves.
1. Innomet Powders: the workhorse that makes everything else possible
It turns molten metal into dust - over 20 grades of copper, bronze, nickel, tin and stainless-steel powders - and sells them to factories that press and bake that dust into car parts, cutting tools and 3D-printed components.
- Copper is the volume driver - copper and copper-mix powders are the division's largest product line by volume, sold into industries where margins are thin but order sizes are large, which keeps the factory's atomization towers running at roughly 65-70% of their capacity.
- Custom particle size is the differentiator - the company can engineer powder particles from 0.1 to 1,000 micrometres in specific shapes, using water, air or gas atomization depending on the alloy, so a customer making self-lubricating bearings gets a different powder than one welding an oil pipeline.
- Gas atomization opens the premium tier - gas-atomized powders are cleaner and hold less oxygen than water-atomized ones, which matters for nickel and cobalt alloys used in aerospace; the company currently backfills with inert gas rather than melting under vacuum, so it is not yet producing the highest aerospace grades, but a DRDO-funded 100-kg clean-powder facility being built with IIT Hyderabad is designed to close that gap.
- Exports are small but growing - overseas sales of metal powders reached ₹8.5 crore in the latest year, against an addressable global specialty-powder market the company estimates at roughly a billion dollars, suggesting most of the runway lies outside India.
2. Innotung: the only private Indian maker of tungsten heavy alloys
When a missile needs a dense, heat-resistant penetrator or a hospital needs a radiation shield that fits in a small space, this division machines tungsten-alloy parts to the customer's exact drawing - a business with better margins than powders but long, technically demanding sales cycles.
- The only private domestic supplier - no other private Indian manufacturer makes Tungsten Heavy Alloys, which is why the company broke its own rule against forward-integrating into customers' businesses: there was simply nobody else to do it.
- Density is the selling point - these alloys weigh 15.8 to 18.7 grams per cubic centimetre, roughly twice as dense as steel, so they absorb radiation, balance rotating parts, and punch through armour in ways lighter metals cannot.
- Defence demand is the tailwind - global conflict and India's emergence as an ammunition exporter are pulling orders; since March 2026 the company has won three orders worth over $1.88 million from Scope Metals in Israel alone, and a separate single order of about ₹15 crore in May 2026.
- Aerospace certification unlocks exports - the division holds AS9100D, the quality-management standard required to sell into aerospace supply chains, which alongside ISO 9001:2015 gives it a credential most small Indian manufacturers lack.
- Capacity is underused but ready - the plant ran at 65-70% utilization for metal powders and 40-45% for tungsten heavy alloys as of late 2025, meaning existing orders can scale without large new capital spending.
3. Swastik Tungsten: securing the raw material and opening a bigger market
A distressed asset bought through the insolvency process in early 2026, this 120-tonne-per-year tungsten-powder plant gives Innomet control over the key input for its THA division while also letting it sell tungsten carbide powders and finished carbide components into a market the company describes as much larger than tungsten heavy alloys.
- Backward integration, not just supply security - by acquiring a 57.5% stake for ₹1.5 crore, Innomet ensures its THA division has a captive source of tungsten metal powder, insulating it from price swings and shortages in a metal where global supply is concentrated.
- A second revenue stream from carbide - the plant can produce Tungsten Carbide Powder, Ready-to-Press powder (carbide pre-mixed with cobalt, ready for component makers), and finished Tungsten Carbide Inserts and Components, all of which sell to a broader industrial customer base than the defence-focused THA business.
- Bought for a fraction of replacement cost - the acquisition came through the NCLT insolvency process with operations halted and no turnover in the prior year, so the ₹1.5 crore price tag reflects a distressed valuation rather than the cost of building 120 tonnes of annual capacity from scratch.
Group structure and partners
A promoter-led public company with no holding entity, listed on the NSE's small-and-medium-enterprise platform, and building its technical edge through a network of government-lab and corporate research partnerships rather than in-house R&D alone.
- Promoter family holds the majority - as of March 2025, the three promoter shareholders together owned about 55% of the equity, with the Managing Director, Mr. Vinay Choudary Chilakapati, holding just over 4% directly while two senior family members held the larger blocks.
- Research collaborations substitute for scale - the company works with DRDO and IIT Hyderabad on a ₹8.73-crore clean-powder facility, with Tata Steel on additive-manufacturing and surface-coating powders, with DMRL on brake-piston insulation pads, with the Department of Atomic Energy's BRIT unit on radiation-shielding containers (where Innomet is an approved Indian manufacturer), and with Bharat Petroleum on a hydrogen-production component.
- An Israeli agent opens the defence-export channel - Scope Metals Group Ltd was appointed as exclusive agent for tungsten cubes and balls in Israel, a market that has already produced multiple orders since March 2026.
- Related-party ties are operational, not structural - the company buys services, equipment and construction work from three proprietorship and partnership firms owned by relatives of the director, but has no joint ventures or associate companies.