Swades moment: Pratyush Kumar leaves Boeing flight deck to fund Indian aerospace startups

CHENNAI: This could well be the aerospace industry's real life “" moment. Pratyush Kumar, who was Boeing India chief till recently and then went on to head the F-15 programme in the US, has left his corner office to become an angel investor for desi aerospace supply chain startups. Apart from putting in an undisclosed amount of his own, Kumar is also advising VCs in Europe and North America to invest in the right startups here.
"The aerospace industry has a tiered supply chain level right across.This ecosystem suffered a pretty large shock during the pandemic with a lot of the demand going away; OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) slashing output and employees retiring," Kumar told TOI from the US.
Then from 2022, travel saw a way faster than expected rebound and suddenly from almost all planes grounded globally airlines did not have enough aircraft to fly people around.
Kumar, who spent over two decades in leadership roles at GE & Boeing, said: "During Covid, we saw the 'Great Resignations' when a lot of experienced talent actually walked out. (When demand returned), many in (the talent pool) never came back in the western world," he said.
As a result, there weren't adequate number of trained people to meet the sudden spurt in demand for parts, engines, and planes. That's when Kumar saw an opportunity for the Indian aerospace startups which were beginning to come of age due to the tremendous availability of talent in the country. "The western world has a great shortage of manpower for highly skilled jobs. The big OEMs can find people but not the tier II, III & further down the line. So, there is an acute shortage of quality suppliers for aerospace. If you look at the output of the big OEMs, you can see that they are not able to meet even half the demand or less than that," said Kumar.
"At this point, I started thinking how we can alleviate this. Where do you go? You have to go to what are the friendly countries. India was in the short list with a deep experience and huge talent pool."
At this "unique moment of time" he thought of leaving Boeing and did so last year. Since then he has backed startups like Jeh Aerospace in India and is in talks with several more apart from advising VCs to do the same by shortlisting the right ones.
"I know over 200 suppliers (in India) really well. They have a really great opportunity and some truly world-class fantastic people. If you bring them together, you can create sustainable long-term successful businesses. That's how I got associated with these guys. The demand for aerospace products is tremendous and the supply chain will remain constrained. So as long as they (Indian supply chain industry) can maintain two things -- quality and delivery, -- there's infinite demand for these products," he said.
Asked the size of his investments in India, Kumar just said he is "investing some of my own personal savings in some companies. I'm also advising some big VC companies to find the right companies to support."
"I'm in touch with at least 50 different Indian companies in that space. I'm not going to commit investment to all 50. In some I will do so and some I will refer to the VCs," he said.
"Most Indian startups don't have access to global markets. I am able to bridge that gap. Connecting the aerospace industry in the west with the Indian startup scene, that's what I'm trying to do," said Kumar who was the VP of Boeing F-15 programme when he left the aerospace major last year. He is now an angel investor in aerospace and defence startups like Jeh Aerospace and Conforming Inc and an advisor to leading VC firm General Catalyst.