Drone maker ideaForge Technology files IPO papers with Sebi
Drone maker ideaForge Technology has filed primary papers with capital requests controller Sebi to raise finances through an original public immolation (IPO). The public issue comprises fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 300 crore and an offer for trade (OFS) of 48,69,712 equity shares by one of the promoters and being shareholders, according to the draft red herring prospectus( DRHP).
Those dealing shares in the OFS include Ashish Bhat, A&E Investment LLC, Agarwal Trademart, Celesta Capital II Mauritius, Celesta Capital II- B Mauritius, Export Import Bank of India, Indusage Technology Venture Fund I, Qualcomm Asia Pacific Pte Ltd and Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Also, the company may consider an issue of shares adding up to Rs 60crore.However, the fresh issue size will be reduced, if similar placement is completed.
Proceeds from the fresh allocation to the tune of Rs 50 crore will be utilised for debt payment, Rs 135 crore towards funding working capital conditions and Rs 40 crore for investment in product development and general commercial purposes. innovated in 2007, the Mumbai- grounded company has the largest functional deployment of indigenous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) across India, with its drones taking off every five twinkles on average for surveillance and mapping.
ideaForge’s guests include the fortified forces, central fortified police forces, state police departments, disaster operation forces, timber departments and civil guests. During the 2015 earthquake, ideaForge UAVs were used for point monitoring in Kathmandu, Nepal, and other locales to prop with the hunt and deliverance conditioning.
During a terrorist incident in Pampore in 2016, ideaForge UAVs were suitable to deliver pivotal intelligence by revealing the precise locales of the terrorists, as per the draft papers. farther, ideaForge’s Ninja UAV was utilised to check theft and pilferage cases with its cooperation with railroads to boost their surveillance operations.
The company was incubated by the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT Bombay and latterly by CIIE enterprise, IIM Ahmedabad. The company has turned around from being loss making in FY21 to clocking a profit of Rs44.01 crore in FY22. Its profit from operations increased from Rs34.72 crore in financial 2021 to Rs159.44 crore in FY2022.
For the six months ended September 30, 2022, profit from operations stood at Rs139.55 crore and profit after duty at Rs45.21 crore. JM Financial and IIFL Securities are the book running lead directors to the issue. Last time, Droneacharya Aerial inventions got listed on the BSE SME platform.
About IdeaForge Technology
IdeaForge is the pioneer and the pre-eminent market leader in the Indian unmanned aircraft systems (“UAS”) market (Source: 1Lattice Report). We had the largest operational deployment of indigenous UAVs across India, with an ideaForge manufactured drone taking off every five minutes for surveillance and mapping on an average. Our customers have completed over 300,000 flights using our UAVs. We ranked 7th globally in the dual-use category (civil and defense) drone manufacturers as per the report published by Drone Industry Insights in December 2022 (Source: 1Lattice Report).
Our UAVs are equipped with industry leading specifications and capabilities, comparable to those of other established global players in the UAV industry (Source: 1Lattice Report). Our capabilities like our indigenous design and technological ability to invent, design and deliver customer centric offerings allow us to design, develop, engineer and manufacture our UAVs in-house with a control on performance, reliability and autonomy.
Our UAV platforms are architected with a ‘mission first’ approach i.e., to deliver UAVs which meet the requirements of our customers and which, we believe, can reliably sustain a large number of flights and are capable of being autonomously operated without special skills or training. In addition to being among the first few players in India to enter the UAV market, we also have the distinction of being the first company to indigenously develop and manufacture vertical take-off and landing (“VTOL”) UAVs in India in 2009. We have industry’s leading product portfolios targeted at civil and defence applications (dual use) (Source: 1Lattice Report)