For the 90’s kids flying a remote-controlled helicopter was a fascination. Perhaps, Agnishwar Jayaprakash realised his childhood dream through founding the Garuda Aerospace (GA) that manufactures drones. An alumnus of Chettinad Vidyaashram and then from Harvard, he went on to serve in the UN, under Assistant Secretary General Madam Lakshmi Puri and prepared impact reports on the power of youth and emerging technology. This helped him understand the potential of India and how leveraging drone technology could disrupt several sectors. Thus, founded in 2015, with a team of 5, was Garuda Aerospace that has scaled to a more than 200-member team. The company has the largest drone fleet in India with over 400 drones and 500 pilots operating in 84 cities.
In an interview with Industrial Economist, he discusses in detail about the current operation and future expansion of Garuda Aerospace and the industry in whole.
An eagle-eyed focus
Garuda Aerospace focuses on design, building and customisation of drones and at present manufacture 30 different types, offering over 50 services. Our kisan drones, mainly developed for agricultural purposes such as reducing loss, health monitoring, yield measurement and crop loss mitigation has been awarded a Type Certificate from DGCA. This makes the drone eligible for Rs 10 lakh unsecured loans at a 5 per cent interest and 50-100 per cent government subsidy. It will facilitate several farmers and agricultural organisations to procure our drones and in turn create job opportunities for the youth. DGCA has also provided the Remote Pilot Training Organisation (RPTO) certification. This enables GA to train youth and we plan to train 1 lakh drone pilots in the next 2 years. With strong demands, we are geared to manufacture 5000 drones in the next 5 months.
Expanding capabilities beyond agriculture, surveillance and mapping, the company is focused on disrupting two major multi-billion-dollar sectors – precision agritech and industry 4.0. We are also working at building advanced solutions for the armed forces in collaboration with global giants.
Drones for different sectors
Our main focus remains agriculture. 90 per cent of our target revenue comes from kisan drones. The drones are used for spraying fertiliser and are 7-8 times more efficient than manual spraying and use 70 per cent less pesticide and 80 per cent less water. Loaded with artificial intelligence through Amazon Web Services and machine learning capabilities by Cognizant, these drones can spray to 25-30 acres per day and is also customisable for a variety of different payloads.
GA also piloted drone delivery of medicines and packages. When this becomes mainstream, delivery times will be cut short and reaching isolated parts will become easier. In the next 1 year, we intend to expand to e-commerce, food delivery, air logistics and urban air mobility (drone taxis).
The drone economy
The global commercial drone market was valued at USD 6.51 billion in 2021, and it is expected to grow to USD 47.38 billion by 2028 at a CAGR of 28.58 per cent. Ministry of Civil Aviation estimated that the industry, which now has a turnover of around Rs 80 crore, will reach Rs 12,000-15,000 crore by 2026. Drone laws were liberalised only in 2020-2021. Since then, there have been lot of policies related to loans, subsidies and production linked incentives (PLI). This has facilitated the rapid transformation of the drone ecosystem. Under the visionary leadership of our Prime Minister, policies are progressive and transparent.
For every 1 indigenous drone manufacturer in the country, there are about 450 drone service providers. This has increased the demand for manpower. India’s goal is to become the global hub for drone technology. With enhanced skill-based programmes, this would become possible.
GA’s drone manufacturing facility
Garuda Aerospace has a main factory unit in Chennai and another secondary unit in Haryana. A factory unit is being set up internationally in Malaysia. Soon our manufacturing capacity will increase to 100 drones per day, by March 2023. We have already secured 8000 drones JV orders from Malaysia, Panama, UAE, France and Africa and have set a vision to manufacture 1 lakh drones by 2024.
Our facility in Chennai, is the largest in India and the testing facility is of defence standard. Our R&D team collaborates with IIT Madras, IISc, MIT-Boston and over a dozen agricultural universities in India. We have served over 750 clients in the past 4 years including TATA, Godrej, Adani, Reliance, Swiggy, Flipkart, Delhivery, L&T, Survey of India, ISRO, SAIL, NTPC, IOCL, Smart cities, Mining corporations, NHAI for various different projects
Future Plans
Present in 26 cities across India, the company plans to expand to over 100 nations across the world in the next 15 months. Currently valued at USD 250 million, the revenue is expected to be about Rs 100 crore in FY 2022-23. GA intends to become the first drone unicorn startup by the end of 2023 and also go public in the next two years.
With an aim to sell 25,000 drones in the next 18 months and export 10,000 drones to 100 countries in next 12-15 months, Agnishwar and his team are geared to soar high above the sky.
