ideaForge, India’s Leading Drone Manufacturer, Raises $20 Million In Series B Funding From Florintree, Infosys

ideaForge, India’s largest manufacturer of drones, has closed its Series B funding round of $20 Million led by Florintree, which is helmed by the former Blackstone India private equity Co-Head, Mathew Cyriac.

The round also saw participation from its existing investors such as Celesta, which is a prominent deep tech investment fund, Infosys, Qualcomm and Infina, along with the Exim Bank of India.

Founded in 2007 by IIT Bombay alumni, ideaForge has over 15 years of research and development (R&D) history and it owns more than 20 global patents. Its customers include the Indian military, Adani group, L&T, Indian Oil, Survey of India, Indian Railways, among others.

ideaForge Co-founder and CEO Ankit Mehtas, said: “ideaForge is very happy to be associated with Florintree, which has a proven track record of helping organisations unlock enterprise value.”

“ideaForge has grown 10X in the last two years and we will use this funding to invest in R&D, international expansion and building a world-class team. We want to continue to create high performance, reliable and autonomous drones that inspire the adoption of this technology,” he added.

IdeaForge Technology is among the 14 drone companies that have been selected as beneficiaries of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to boost drone manufacturing in India.

Under the PLI scheme that was announced last year, the incentive for a manufacturer of drones and drone components will be 20% of the “value addition” made by the company during the the next three years. The value addition is calculated as the annual sales revenue from drones and drone minus the purchase cost of drone and drone components.

The Union Government expects the drone manufacturing industry to invest over Rs 5,000 crore over the next three years and generate 10,000 direct jobs. By FY24, it estimates the turnover of the drone manufacturing industry to grow to Rs 900 crore from Rs 60 crore now.