IdeaForge – A tale about a prominent Drone Startup in India.

There are not many listed companies in the exploding Drone market. The interesting part of the Drone start-up’s is that there is no dearth of Financiers and all listed bluechip companies are picking up stake in these promising start-ups.

One such prominent startup in the unlisted space is ideaForge, promoted by Ankit Mehta CEO and co-founder of ideaForge. Ankit completed his B.Tech and M.Tech (Dual Degree, Specialization: Computer-Aided Design and Automation) in 2005, from IIT-Bombay

Founded in 2007, ideaForge has over 15 years of research and development (R&D) history and it owns more than 20 global patents.

It dominates the segment of Security and Surveillance with a 90% market share in India. It’s products are also being exported.

The Indian military, Adani group, L&T, IOC, Survey of India, Indian Railways, among others are its notable customers.

Back in 2016, Infosys had first invested in ideaForge to focus on unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV solutions (drones).

Five years later in 2021, Infosys made another investment of US$ 1 million or Rs 72 m in ideaForge.

This year in April, ideaForge raised another US$ 20 m in a Series B funding round in which Infosys also participated.

The drone startup continues to ride high on growth prospects as it has a strong order book.

Recently, it overtook competition Tata and Israeli defence contractors Aerospace Industries and Elbit to receive a big order from the Indian army.

According to the company, one of ideaForge’s drones takes off every six minutes, in the service of either the defence and security establishment or commercial users like oil companies, Indian Railways, or conglomerates like Adani and L&T.

If the company does get listed in the future, Infosys can make a killing as it has a stake of over 20% in ideaForge.

Discl: For general Information only , compiled from equitymaster.com…
I had invested in Infosys as an IT company which has given me good returns over last 3 years. But I now discover that IT companies like Infosys are sitting on Surplus cash which they keep deploying as investments in dozens of such futuristic start up’s which could result in to value unlocking in future.
it is not an investment advice. please do your own assessment before investing.