DroneAdda banks on making India a home-grown drone industry

It introduced the Production Linked Incentive scheme, The Drone Rules 2021 and extensively favourable schemes to set up manufacturing units locally.

For years, India has always focused on manufacturing electronics and automotive parts. However, when it comes to drone-related needs, even now the nation is heavily dependent on importing components from countries like China and Japan. These companies import the hardware parts and assemble them locally in India for retailing. DroneAdda - the one-of-a-kind startup incepted by a strong team of technology experts - Amit and Shantanu, brings made-in-India drone components to the world.

How did it start?

DroneAdda was Shantanu's brainchild. He started a robotic club in his college that created his interest in Aeromodelling and Drones. Started off as a hobby, the UAV engineer at AmitNimje'sstartup identified a huge gap in the Indian drone manufacturing industry that led to the inception of DroneAdda.

DroneAdda does not manufacture, build, assemble or white-label drones. Instead, it specialises in manufacturing the Core Electronics Hardware needed for UAVs(Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) locally. It designs and manufactures parts such as Flight controllers, ESC, Receivers, Propulsion Systems, and more to fulfill local and global demands.

"We build the core technology, which the entire drone industry relies on, making all the drone businesses in India and around the world as our potential clients. We will never build drones since we envision enabling more drone businesses. Also, we are aligned with the GoI's vision about the industry while completely removing the country's import dependency on China," says ShantanuBhede - Founder & CEO of DroneAdda.

The business model

Incepted in 2022, DroneAdda is based on a B2C and B2B model which caters to low, medium and high volume manufacturers and integrators. In addition, it has a separate model that leverages the startup's experience in the drone and embedded hardware industry to design custom hardware for tighter integration into consumer, industrial, and hobby-grade drones.

Though the company is based in Nagpur, Maharashtra, it is pre-incubated at NSRCEL, IIM-Bangalore's Launchpad Programme and incubated at FITT, IIT-Delhi's Incubation Programme.

"We have got a strong hold on several potential customers and they have shown immense interest in our customisation service as well. We believe, it is going to disrupt the way drone companies operate in India," he added.

The business plans and revenue

DroneAdda is a pre-revenue company, in the prototype phase. Within a short span of inception, the deep tech startup has successfully raised pre-seed funding of Rs. 50 Lacs against 8% company equity when it was in its idea stage. Many marquee investors are eyeing the startup as potentially a game changer in the industry. It is planning to raise more pre-seed funds for team expansion and building inventory.

In the coming 12 months, the company plans to expand its operations and presence geographically as efficiently as possible. In addition, it aims to build a robust engineering team and expedite its R&D efforts. Alongside, it also aims to set up an assembly unit so as to lower its overheads and better improve its unit economics.

Initially, DroneAdda plans to tap the market of drone users for domestic purposes. Additionally, it plans to target commercial companies that provide Agriculture, mapping, surveying and surveillance services by the end of next year. Furthermore, it plans to expand its global reach in the next 2 years and position itself as a go-to brand for all drone component needs.