They are now providing enterprise drone solutions under the banner of IG Drones, with a remarkable business model directed by the motto ‘Every Home, One Drone!’ And as if that was not enough, their ‘big aim’ is to upskill one million Indian youth with the latest drone tech.
A typical drone has three important components: frame, motors, and microcontroller. Our country has a mature carbon fibre or composite material industry, hence replicating frames is not a problem. Brushless direct current motor (BLDC) manufacturing is also blooming in India and, with some R&D, we will be able to replicate the drone motor building soon. The challenge is the brain of the drone, that is, the control board based on a microcontroller. “We are indigenously developing our flight controller, with our own software,” says Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya, founder and CEO of IG Drones.
The electrical and electronics engineers and the founders of Invent Grid (IG) Pvt Ltd, Bodhisattva and Om Prakash, endeavored with Project VSLV (VSSUT Satellite Launching Vehicle), which was India’s first multipurpose student rocketry mission. After the Prime Minister Modi’s recognition, ISRO took over the project. But the boys had found their way. They had gained crucial experience in building that rocket while gathering, processing, and analysing geospatial data. They realised that “the data is the game.”
Though they started as a software company, soon after the import ban on Chinese drones in 2020, they ventured out for hardware production amid its acute shortage in the market. Aimed at being a pan-India venture ever since the beginning, the founders faced the common stereotype, that people in the hardcore coding domain often lack business acumen.
“We took it as a challenge and even before getting our company registered, we got our first order from Aditya Birla Group. We believe in the concept of selling first and then building,” says Sanghapriya. He points out that their business model helped them sustain and even multiply during the pandemic.
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