Garuda Aerospace to export 12K drones, L1 bidder in RITES

Chennai, May 5

Drone manufacturer and drone-as-a-service provider Garuda Aerospace will ship out about 4,000 drones to African countries and is also the lowest bidder in the RITES Ltd's tender for LiDAR based survey, said a top company official.

He also said the delivery of grocery packages in Bengaluru for food and grocery player Bundl Technologies Pvt Ltd known by its brand Swiggy is expected to happen soon.

"We are entering the African market. We have signed an agreement with a distributor there to source about 4,000 drones. We have also received signed confirmation orders now of over 8,000 drones from countries like Malaysia, Panama and UAE," Agnishwar Jayaprakash, Founder & CEO, told IANS.

He also said Garuda Aerospace has emerged the lowest bidder in the RITES Ltd's tender for LiDAR (light detection and ranging) survey tender.

Queried about the delivery of packages for Swiggy, Jayaprakash said the service is expected to happen soon.

He said Swiggy has to specify the landing spots for the drones with packages.

According to him, the drones will carry the grocery packs from the seller-run 'dark stores' and from a store to a common middle point - drone port- where the Swiggy delivery person will pick up the packet and deliver to the end customer.

The common middle point is the responsibility of Swiggy and it will give the addresses, Jayaprakash said.

In February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had virtually inaugurated the drone manufacturing facilities of Garuda Aerospace at Manesar in Gurugram and in Chennai.

Meanwhile, Garuda Aerospace has raised an undisclosed sum as Pre-series A funding from investors led by Ocgrow Ventures.

According to Jayaprakash, the investors include prominent super angels from the global Investment banking circles.

This investment round would serve more so as a primer before the startup's larger $30 million Series A Round scheduled in June 2022.

"With a potential demand of incoming orders exceeding over $50 million in near future, we firmly believe Garuda will undoubtedly create immense value which will be difficult to ignore from an impact investment and additional global VC (venture capital) funds going forward," Harish Consul, Founder & CEO of Ocgrow Ventures was quoted as saying in a statement from Garuda Aerospace.