Build India's drone supply chain — components, AI, and the factory — entirely in India.
A vertically-integrated, AI-run drone factory in Pune that makes the 60–70% of components India imports from China at home — and keeps every rupee of that manufacturing margin in India.
Nathan Timmis · Pune & Zürich · 2026
02 / 12
The Problem
India's drone boom runs on Chinese parts.
India's drone market is growing fast — but the strategic 20–30% of every airframe (motors, flight controllers, batteries, optics) is still imported, and China controls that layer. "Indian" drones fly on Chinese silicon. This is not a demand problem — it is a supply-chain-sovereignty problem, and it is exactly what Atmanirbhar Bharat and Mission Drone Shakti exist to fix.
60–70%
Of drone cost = imported payloads, motors, sensors2
Optics, GPS & LiDAR alone are 60–70% of unit cost — mostly Japan / Korea / China.
An AI-run, vertically-integrated drone factory in Pune.
India Drone Labs is not one more platform integrator — it is the plant that makes what they all import. A single factory AI runs the floor: CNC frame milling, in-house BLDC motor winding, SMT flight-controller assembly, and YOLOv12 optical QC — under one model, on CPU-only edge hardware. The interceptor airframe lands at a $37 component cost, NDAA-clean, at parity with Chinese FPV.
◉
VISHWAKARMAविश्वकर्म
One factory-AI runs the whole line — milling, winding, SMT, packing — and audits every unit. 2,740-unit/day designed throughput.
△
VAJRA interceptorवज्र
Kinetic ram-kill airframe — tungsten head, no warhead, no explosive-handling licence. FLIR-class thermal seeker, proportional-navigation guidance.
◈
1.58-bit edge AI
BitNet b1.58 ternary inference runs the floor and the seeker on CPUs — zero imported GPUs, the one component India cannot yet make.
▲
92% Pune BOM
Frame · motors · ESC · FC · props all sourced inside 40 km of Chakan MIDC. Only cells (Korea) stay imported — for now.
04 / 12
The Arithmetic
BOM $37 · NDAA-clean · at FPV parity.
Every line is sourced and public. Motors $8 · frame $6 · ESC $5 · flight controller $9 · props $1.50 · battery $4.50 · wiring $1 · AI-assisted assembly $1 · YOLOv12 QC $0.50 · packaging $0.50 = $37. That is the number the rest of the industry imports at — the difference is that $33.50 of it is spent, and earned, in Pune. The kinetic interceptor variant kills a hostile drone for ~$5.7K vs $4.1M for a PAC-3 round.
BOM line
Source
Cost
In-India
BLDC motor ×4
Wound in-house, Hinjewadi
$8.00
✓
Carbon-fibre frame
Bhor Chemicals, Pune
$6.00
✓
Flight controller F7
Shogini Technoarts PCB
$9.00
✓
ESC ×4
Hans Cag Electronics PCB
$5.00
✓
6S battery cell
Imported (South Korea)
$4.50
—
Props · wiring · assembly · QC · pack
Pune, in-house
$4.50
✓
Unit BOM
92% Pune-sourced
$37.00
92%
05 / 12
Market
$1.39B India drone market by 2030 · defence fastest.
India's UAV market grows from $0.47B (2025) to ~$1.39B by 2030 at 24.4% CAGR — defence & security is the fastest segment at 26.4%. Annual drone volume roughly doubles from 8,381 to 16,756 units. A flat 20% PLI runs for the scheme's duration, and Mission Drone Shakti adds ₹1,600–1,800cr specifically to localise components — the exact layer India Drone Labs builds.
The incumbents are platform brands. We are the supply chain.
India's drone leaders are real and strong — but they are platform & integration companies whose own BOMs still depend on the imported component layer. ideaForge holds ~50% of the UAS market5; Garuda has ~40% of agri-drones5; Zen and Paras lead anti-drone and payloads. India Drone Labs sits underneath all of them: the vertically-integrated, AI-run component & airframe plant they could buy from instead of importing.
India Drone Labs is not a paper project. The Pune–Chakan industrial corridor is one of Asia's densest precision-manufacturing clusters — 200+ engineering firms, PLI-eligible, next door to Tata's military-vehicle lines. Every named component maps to a named facility within 40 km of Chakan MIDC.
36-month phased plan. Phase 1 ships a containerised line and proves the airframe; the margin funds Phase-2 component lines (motor winding, SMT, CNC) so the imported 30% shrinks each quarter. By Phase 3 the only import left is the cell — and even that moves to an Indian Li-ion partner. India owns the IP, the line, and the component base.
M0–M6
Phase 1 · Pilot line
500 units · ₹6 Cr
Containerised assembly at Chakan MIDC
Airframe + factory-AI proven
92% Pune BOM · 0% net margin
M6–M18
Phase 2 · Component lines
3,000/yr · ₹40 Cr
In-house BLDC winding + SMT FC/ESC
PLI 20% claimed on localised value
Imported layer cut to <10%
M18–M36
Phase 3 · Sovereign
10,000+/yr · ₹180 Cr
Indian Li-ion cell partner onboarded
Defence + export channel (DAP/iDEX)
95%+ India BOM · 15% margin
09 / 12
Financials · 36-Month Plan
₹226 Cr cumulative revenue · margin retained in India.
Phase
Units
India BOM
Revenue
Net margin
P1 · M0–6
500
92%
₹6 Cr
0%
P2 · M6–18
4,500
90%+
₹40 Cr
8%
P3 · M18–36
30,000
95%+
₹180 Cr
15%
36-mo total
35,000
→95%
₹226 Cr
₹31 Cr
Figures are management projections for capital-planning purposes, not a forecast of returns. PLI 20% on localised value is upside not modelled in the margin column above.
10 / 12
Team
Engineering-first · India-resident operations.
Nathan Timmis — founder & CEO. Swiss-resident, India-operating. Prior work: Hyperlog Labs (Stratus financial-intelligence engine, OKHeidi Swiss-AI voice platform, GeoMetals rare-earth verification). Technical background in ML systems, SDR, autonomous systems, and the 1.58-bit ternary inference stack that lets the factory and the seeker run GPU-free.
Advisory bench to be confirmed on LoR countersignature: Indian defence procurement (DAP 2020 / iDEX), DGCA & Drone Rules regulatory, Pune precision-manufacturing operations, and embedded edge-AI. Local OpCo to be incorporated in Maharashtra.
11 / 12
The Ask
Strategic partnership · not just capital.
₹ 40 Cr · Series A
To build the supply chain, not just the first batch. This deployment ends with India owning a vertically-integrated drone factory and its component base — not a services contract that ends when the funding stops.
₹16 Cr · Phase-1 execution — Chakan pilot line, airframe + factory-AI, doctrine, first operator cohort
Preference: a defence-industrial or PLI-aligned strategic investor able to open DAP/iDEX evaluation and component-PLI channels. In exchange: IP and operating entity domiciled in India by Phase 3, board seat on the India OpCo, first-right on the defence & export pipeline.
12 / 12
आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः
"Let noble thoughts come to us from every direction." — Rig Veda 1.89.1
Counter-UAS kinetic cost framing (interceptor vs PAC-3) — internal BOM derivation, India Drone Labs, consistent with published Shahed / PAC-3 cost-asymmetry analyses.
All market and competitor figures above are drawn from publicly available third-party research and press as of June 2026 and are cited for due-diligence reference only; India Drone Labs is not affiliated with, and makes no representation on behalf of, any company named. Unit-economics and financial figures are management estimates for capital-planning purposes, not a forecast of returns.
INDIA DRONE LABSAerospace & Defence
भारत ड्रोन प्रयोगशाला
LoR-2026-06-02-EN
Issued ·
Place · Pune, Maharashtra, India
Governing law · Swiss Code of Obligations
Letter of Representation
Authority to Represent · Drone Manufacturing Programme
Whereas — the undersigned Principal ("Principal") is the founder and controlling party of the India Drone Labs drone-manufacturing programme; whereas the Principal requires an authorised Representative ("Representative") to conduct introductory, commercial, and pre-contractual negotiations on the Principal's behalf within the Republic of India and allied jurisdictions; whereas both parties wish to memorialise the scope and limits of that representation in writing — the Principal hereby appoints the Representative on the following terms.
1. Appointment. The Principal appoints the Representative to act as the Principal's authorised representative for the purpose of introducing, presenting, explaining, and negotiating in good faith the India Drone Labs programme — including its factory-AI (VISHWAKARMA), interceptor airframe (VAJRA), and associated component-localisation roadmap — to prospective government customers, defence-industrial participants, strategic investors, and PLI-aligned manufacturing partners.
2. Scope of authority. The Representative is authorised to: (a) present the pitch materials made available at hyperlog.agency/indiadronelabs/ and indiadronelabs.ch; (b) answer questions on technical capability, BOM composition, phased roadmap, and unit economics; (c) accept non-binding expressions of interest; (d) execute mutual non-disclosure agreements on the Principal's standard form; (e) forward term sheets to the Principal for review and countersignature. The Representative is not authorised to bind the Principal to any contract, pricing, exclusivity, or delivery commitment without the Principal's express prior written consent.
3. Territory. The Republic of India, and any jurisdiction the Principal designates in writing from time to time.
4. Term. This Letter takes effect upon countersignature by both parties and remains in force for twelve (12) months, renewable automatically for successive twelve-month periods unless either party gives thirty (30) days' written notice of termination. The Principal may terminate immediately for cause.
5. Compensation. As agreed separately between the parties in the Representative's engagement letter, and referenced herein by cross-reference only. Compensation does not depend on, and shall not be disclosed to, any prospective counterparty without the Principal's written consent.
6. Confidentiality. All technical, commercial, financial, BOM, manufacturing-partner, and roadmap information made available to the Representative in connection with this appointment is confidential and shall be used solely for the purposes of this appointment. The Representative shall not disclose such information to any third party other than on a need-to-know basis under a written non-disclosure agreement approved by the Principal.
7. Export control & legal compliance. The Representative shall conduct all activities in full compliance with applicable export controls, civil-aviation, and defence-trade regulations, including those of India (DGCA, Drone Rules 2021, and DDP / DAP frameworks), Switzerland, and — where foreign-origin components are incidentally present — applicable U.S. ITAR/EAR. The Representative shall not offer, deliver, or commit to deliver lethal or dual-use technology to any embargoed party or individual.
8. Independent status. The Representative acts as an independent contractor. Nothing in this Letter creates an employment, partnership, joint-venture, or fiduciary relationship beyond the limited agency described in Clause 2. The Representative shall bear his own taxes, social contributions, and travel costs.
9. Governing law & jurisdiction. This Letter is governed by the Swiss Federal Code of Obligations. Any dispute that cannot be resolved by good-faith negotiation shall be submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Canton of Zürich, without prejudice to the Principal's right to seek urgent injunctive relief in any competent jurisdiction to protect confidentiality or intellectual property.
10. Entire agreement. This Letter, together with the separately executed engagement letter and non-disclosure agreement between the parties, constitutes the entire agreement on the subject of representation. It supersedes any prior discussion or correspondence. Amendments must be in writing and signed by both parties.
Signed in two originals, one for each party, on the date set out above.