- **Sarthak Metals began in 1995 as a small industrial-gases unit in Bhilai, but it became what it is today in 2002, when it designed and built its own cored-wire mill to serve steel plants - a pivot that established a recurring pattern of in-house engineering and a technology-partner mindset. Over the next two decades, that original metallurgical-consumables business grew into India’s leading supplier of cored wires and aluminium flipping coils, and in 2024 the company deliberately branched into welding consumables and announced entry into biotechnology, aiming to add consumption-linked engines alongside its investment-linked steel core. The company has been profitable every year since founding, carries no debt, and operates from the heart of India’s steel ecosystem with a compact workforce of 145 people.** # Business segments Two engines at different stages - a metallurgical-consumables cash cow that holds a 30%-plus market share, and a pair of younger diversification bets in welding and biotechnology, each built on the same in-house engineering approach. ## 1. Cored wires and aluminium flipping coils: the steel industry’s precision consumables **Steel plants cannot make clean, precisely alloyed steel without injecting these products into molten metal - and Sarthak is the preferred supplier to India’s top five producers.** - **The product is the process** - cored wires are steel tubes packed with alloy powders (calcium silicide, ferro titanium, carbon, and nine other grades) that are injected into molten steel ladles; this replaces the old method of lump addition and gives uniform mixing, higher yield, and cleaner steel, making it indispensable in modern plants. - **Aluminium coils that shape the grain** - aluminium flipping coils act as deoxidizers and grain refiners, and they are more cost-effective than notch bars or ingots; they are critical for producing the ‘pancake’ ferrite grains required in automotive and industrial-grade steels. - **Machines that lock in the customer** - the company also makes customised wire-feeder machines that inject cored wires at up to 300 metres per minute, and it proactively installs them at client sites, creating a turnkey solution that secures repeat cored-wire orders. - **Three plants, deep buffers** - the business runs three facilities on roughly 450,000 square feet in Bhilai, with cored-wire capacity of 10,000 tonnes a year across four lines and aluminium-flipping-coil capacity of 15,000 tonnes a year across two lines; warehousing holds three to four months of buffer stock, so steel plants are never left waiting. - **A moat built on trust and a sibling’s alloys** - the company has served over 125 customers, with 85% of business from repeat orders and more than 45 client relationships lasting over a decade; it sources specialty ferro alloys from group entity Bansal Brothers, which holds over 70% market share in those inputs, giving Sarthak almost a 70% share in products made with them and very short procurement lead times. ## 2. Flux cored wires: the import-substitution bet in welding **India imports nearly all its flux cored welding wire from China; Sarthak is building domestic capacity to capture a ₹300-crore sub-segment that could triple in size.** - **Welding wire that works outdoors** - flux cored wires are tubular electrodes with flux inside that melts during welding to form a protective gas shield, enabling high-efficiency welding in challenging outdoor environments like shipyards and construction sites. - **Built for an import gap** - the division was launched in 2023 after the company identified that India has almost no domestic manufacturing for flux cored wires, with average imports exceeding 14,500 tonnes a year; the Indian welding consumables market is over ₹3,000 crore, half of it unorganised, and the flux cored wire slice alone is estimated at ₹300 crore with potential to reach ₹1,000 crore in three to five years. - **Capacity tripled, railways approved** - production capacity has been raised from an initial 1,200 tonnes a year to 3,600 tonnes across three lines, with provision to reach 10,000 tonnes; in April 2025 the division received RDSO approval from Indian Railways, the gold standard for quality in the sector, which opens up railway welding applications. - **Dealers are the distribution engine** - the go-to-market strategy relies on a dealer network that has grown to more than 10 dealers across more than five states, with the welding division achieving average monthly volumes exceeding 100 tonnes in the September 2025 quarter and dealers reordering with confidence. ## 3. Biotechnology: the enzyme play for ethanol and beyond **A measured, partnership-driven entry into industrial enzymes - the company wants to be a technology partner to ethanol distilleries, not a commodity supplier.** - **Enzymes that make ethanol more efficient** - the venture focuses on industrial enzymes and bio-consumables that improve fermentation in biofuel production; the bio-consumables needed by the ethanol industry are worth roughly ₹1.00 per litre of ethanol produced, and a recent oil-marketing-company tender of ₹1,050 crore points to a market size of more than ₹1,000 crore. - **Government labs as R&D partners** - the company signed an MoU with CSIR under the Ministry of Science and Technology, along with LIT University and Hislop College in Nagpur, for technology transfer and continuous R&D; in February 2024 it received microbial cultures for cellulose-degrading enzymes, claiming to be the first public-private partnership entity awarded this transfer from a reputed CSIR centre. - **A pilot plant, not a factory** - the division operates a small R&D facility in Nagpur with a Koji room for solid-state fermentation and a fermentation capacity of just 14 kg, operational since May 2025; total investment so far is ₹50 lakhs, and the company describes its approach as measured, noting potential overcapacity in the ethanol industry. - **The ambition spans enzymes to probiotics** - the division’s stated focus areas cover industrial enzymes for biofuels, food and beverage, laundry, and wastewater treatment, plus micronutrients for soil and animal health, and prebiotics and probiotics for gut health and animal nutrition; shareholders approved a broadened charter in December 2025 authorising the company to deal in all kinds of biotechnological products. # Group structure and partners **Sarthak Metals is the listed flagship of a five-decade-old family group, with a ferroalloy sibling that supplies its most critical raw material.** - The Desraj Bansal Group operates through three core entities: Sarthak Metals (the listed company housing cored wires, flipping coils, flux cored wires, and biotechnology), Bansal Brothers (a specialty ferroalloy producer with 6,000-11,000 tonnes of capacity and over 70% market share in niche noble ferro alloys), and Sarthak Energy (a 2 MW solar power plant with state-government power purchase agreements). - The group has five manufacturing facilities in Bhilai and group revenues exceeding ₹650 crore; Sarthak Metals itself has no subsidiaries, associates, or joint ventures, and it sold its legacy industrial-gases division in 2021 and part of its ferroalloys unit in FY22 to focus on its core. - The biotechnology venture operates through a partnership with CSIR, LIT University, Nagpur, and Hislop College, Nagpur, under an MoU for technology transfer and continuous R&D.