Scimplifying the Business of Chemicals

Scimplify combines R&D and manufacturing expertise in specialty chemicals to connect Indian factories with buyers at home and abroad

- BY HIMANI KOTHARI

It began with a chance encounter in the United States (US). On a visit to the US in 2022, Sachin Santhosh struck up a conversation with a pharma company executive who was desperate for a specific chemical intermediate used in a drug. The compound itself wasn't hard to find—a factory in Hyderabad could make it, and both men knew the manufacturer.

“But,” the American buyer asked, “can they actually make it at the right quality, scale it commercially, and supply it regularly?”

Born out of that simple question was Scimplify, a Bengaluru-based specialty chemicals platform that Santhosh co-founded with Salil Srivastava and Dheeraj Dhingra in September 2023. "There were plenty of underutilised factories in India," Santhosh says. "The problem wasn't supply, it was trust and scalability."

Scimplify set out to fix exactly that. The full-stack platform connects specialty chemical manufacturers across India—more than 150 plants currently—with buyers around the world. It also has an in-house R&D team of over 15 scientists who work on product development and process optimisation.

THE FOUNDERS’ FORMULA

The three co-founders met through mutual connections. Santhosh and Srivastava studied at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, while Dhingra graduated from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. They quickly realised they shared the same goal: To build a B2B platform that would make India’s manufacturing ecosystem smarter, not just bigger.

Each founder brings distinct strengths to the business. Srivastava, who comes from a strong manufacturing and operations background, oversees customer relationships in India. He previously launched and scaled a chemicals vertical at Zetwerk to $20 million in revenue.