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| Karan Reddy and family at Sticon Adhesives factory |
An agriculturist's son, born in 1969, Karan Reddy grew up in
Hyderabad in a family of five siblings. His father's life oscillated between
the city and the farm, moving back and forth to tend to agricultural
responsibilities while the family settled in Hyderabad. After finishing school
at New Model High School in Hyderabad, Karan pursued mechanical engineering
from Karnataka. His first job was in sales and marketing, where he formed a
friendship that would chart the course of his entrepreneurial journey. A
colleague working in sales of adhesives at Vam Organics, later renamed as Jubilant Organosys then renamed Jubilant Adhesives which got amalgamated into Jubilant Agri and Consumer Products Limited operating in B2B and B2C sectors with products like Jivanjor adhesives, introduced him to the
world of pressure-sensitive adhesives. This connection led Karan to take up
distribution of adhesives by Vam Organics Limited in 1994. His maiden venture K
K Marketing became the exclusive distributor of all Vam products in united
Andhra Pradesh, a role he maintained until 2006. His first big success came as
C&F agent for Jivanjor adhesives.
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| Karan's son Dhanush in coating unit |
While selling pressure sensitive adhesives, Karan learned
that Continental Coatings, a customer manufacturing labelstock, wanted to sell
their company. He saw an opportunity to transition from trading to
manufacturing and acquired the company in 1996. The equipment included a
20-inch Korean made coater laminator and a silicone coater. They shifted the
machinery to another premises and started producing self-adhesive label
materials after renaming the company Sticon Papers Private Limited. The
acquisition brought with it a few local label manufacturers as customers.
Working hard, Sticon started to expand their customer base, moving beyond
Hyderabad and parts of Andhra Pradesh to Bangalore, then Chennai, and
eventually most of South India.
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| Karan and Himashaila in adhesives unit |
That same year, 1994 when he started Vam distribution, Karan married Himashaila, a
postgraduate with an MSc in Computer Science. To support her husband, she
joined the business in 1997, looking after accounts, finance, and import-export
transactions. They have two children. Their elder child Dhanush, born in 1998,
finished schooling at Geetanjali Devshala before completing electrical
engineering. He spent two years at Sticon learning the nuances of business and
overseeing expansion before completing his master's in international business from
London and returning to join Sticon. Their daughter K. Manya Reddy, who
completed her master's degree in international accounting and finance from
London, has also joined the company, heading a division where they import jumbo
rolls of thermal transfer ribbon, slit to sizes and sell.
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| Karan and Dhanush with author at Labelexpo Europe |
One of the most challenging periods came in 2005 when Karan
was setting up a bigger plant, upgrading from a 20-inch emulsion coater to a
40-inch Nordson coater. Compliance issues made life stressful, but he
persevered. The company continued to add machines, including the 40-inch
Nordson coater in 2005-2006. They exhibited at Labelexpo Europe in 2007 and
have been exporting ever since. Today, 45 to 50 percent of their sales are in
export. They have a company in Dubai where they stock, slit and supply in GCC countries.
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| Adhesive reactors |
In 2019, they bought land and construction of a new factory
started in 2020. Initially planned to expand coating capacity, they realized
backward integration was imperative to move the company in fast forward mode.
To cater to diverse applications of filmic and paper labels, it was
advantageous to have their own adhesive manufacturing.
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| finished adhesive stocks |
The new factory became
their adhesive manufacturing facility where they commenced manufacturing
acrylic emulsion adhesives in July 2022, later expanding to hotmelt adhesives as
well. Besides building substantial captive consumption, they cater to other PSA
user industries like adhesive tapes, binders, primers for the paint industry,
and have recently started producing styrene acrylic emulsions for construction,
waterproofing and mixing with concrete. They state that all their adhesives are not
harmful to the environment and safe to use. All adhesive products are ROHS,
REACH and FDA compliant.
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| Valco Metlon HMPSA coater |
Present operations include two Hotmelt adhesive coaters, one
emulsion and two silicone coaters, out of which one coater can do both adhesive
and silicone coating, plus one new Valco Metlon coater just received and will
be commissioned soon. Their coating unit and warehouse measure 80,000 square
feet.
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| Outer Image of new unit |
Since there is no room left in the coating unit, a new building is being constructed for expanding
coating capacity. The adhesive factory has a 100,000 square feet shopfloor with
infrastructure and capability to expand and produce a capacity of 10,000 tons
of acrylic emulsion per month. Present installed capacity is 1,200 tons per
month and utilization is 900-1,000 tons per month. Hotmelt installed capacity
is 200 tons per month, of which presently they produce 150 tons per month.
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| Interior of new plant being built |
All
properties are owned. A new 60,000 square feet plant for expanding coating capabilities is under construction. On
completion they will have a total shopfloor area of 240,000 square feet. They
have a sales office and a warehouse in Delhi besides the slitting facility in
Dubai. Total workforce stands at 220 employees.
Sixty percent of the labelstock produced by them is
paper-based and the rest is filmic face materials. For various digital printing
applications, they produce a range of top coated films and paper stocks. Total
quantity of labelstock now being produced per month is 7,500,000 square meters.
They have received awards from AIDC and LMAI and participate in most
exhibitions related to the packaging industry in India and the Middle East.
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| Karan with son Dhanush |
Responsibilities are clearly allocated. Dhanush handles
manufacturing of adhesives and paint binders, overseas sales of labelstock and
quality control. Karan oversees overall factory working, domestic sales and
procurement, and new product development. As regards the future, Dhanush says they cannot make
assertions. They just keep going and working, maintaining the momentum without
stopping and let the company grow.
**Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast
Limited, New Delhi January 2026**
