AGNISHWAR Jayaprakash, founder and CEO of Chennai-based drone start-up Garuda Aerospace wishes Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s association with Chennai Super Kings and the IPL should continue for a few more years. Dhoni, the brand ambassador and a minority investor in Garuda Aerospace, is the face of the company, which is among India’s top drone makers and one of the pioneers of multipurpose drone making since 2015. The company has come out with a foldable nano drone that fits into one’s pocket — Droni — named after Dhoni.
Garuda makes customised unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for multiple uses, including sanitisation of public spaces, delivery of medicines and food, vaccinations, surveillance, solar panel cleaning, crowd management and the like, but has become a specialist in agriculture drones. It has already sold over 1,500 ‘Kisan’ drones for spraying insecticides, pesticides and herbicides, seed sowing, crop manning etc. “Garuda has sold 2,500 drones so far, out of which 2,000 are agri drones. We plan to sell 25,000 agri drones in the next two years and at least 25,000 other consumer drones in the next few years,” says Jayaprakash. The company has 400-plus clients, including L&T, Tata, Godrej, Reliance, Adani, NTPC, SAIL, IOC and ONGC.
More than half of the agricultural drones used now in India are from Garuda, says Jayaprakash. No wonder, revenues grew from ₹2.3 crore in FY21 to ₹47 crore in FY23. The company, which targets to become the first unicorn among Indian drone makers by next year, is planning an IPO by year end or early next year. — P.B. Jayakumar