It was put together by an IIT Delhi-incubated startup called Botlab Dynamics.
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“We have been part of such a grand occasion before also, but of course it is a big deal for a startup that is coming out of IIT Delhi,” Sarita Ahlawat, cofounder and managing director of Botlab Dynamics, told ET.
A team of 35 people worked for a month, with one week of preparation and rehearsal at the stadium, to orchestrate the show, she said.
Botlab – which counts the Department of Science and Technology, I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics, Let’s Venture, and Florintree Advisors among its investors – has developed drone swarm technology that makes multiple drones ‘talk to each other’ and fly in a coordinated way together, autonomously.
This has use cases in entertainment – where the startup generates most of its business from – as well as in the defence sector for surveillance, logistics, disaster management, and payload drop where a bunch of drones together can deliver more efficiently and quickly, Ahlawat said.
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Mathew Cyriac, executive chairman of Florintree Advisors, said its deep tech expertise will drive its growth. “Their swarming technology expertise makes their drone show leadership very unique. But the real game is actually as they scale up and build other products more for defence and surveillance purposes,” he said.Botlab has done big-ticket light shows including the Indian Premier League and the beating of the retreat on January 28 this year, when it deployed 3,500 drones at Rashtrapati Bhavan – a record for India.
The deep tech-focused startup is now building a new cohort of drones for the Indian Armed Forces, to be ready by March, Ahlawat said. To begin with, it will supply 10 systems of small, light payload, fully autonomous survey drones to the forces.
This project is being fulfilled with a Rs 3-crore grant from iDEX, a government-initiative started in 2018 to foster self-reliance and development in defence and aerospace technology by engaging industries, including startups and MSMEs.
The startup has ambitious plans to expand its drone fleet from around 5,000 currently to 10,000 by March-April. By 2025, it aims to roll out consumer drones for personal use such as in weddings and hiking.
It is also in talks with governments and corporations to partner to put up a light show with 6,000 drones, which would be a world record.
The current drone light show world record is held by Chinese company HighGreat – which Botlab counts as one of its biggest competitors – that deployed 5,200 drones in a single show.
Another player in this space is Russian company GeoScan, which Botlab defeated to win a project in Congo to do ten light shows next week.
While other drone tech companies exist in India too, Botlab differentiates itself from the likes of IdeaForge by enabling the control of their drones via a smartphone or tablet, rather than requiring pilots, Ahlawat said.
It also makes all essential components, such as flight controllers, motor controllers, antenna and GPS, rather than importing, she added.
Founded in 2016, Botlab initially worked with the defence sector to explore surveillance and disaster management drones. But in 2019, it pivoted from drones for defence to light shows, given the long cycles and higher costs for the former.
“Getting funding for a hardware-based startup is very difficult,” Ahlawat said. “So that’s why we said, why don’t we make some money and keep doing R&D and cater to the Indian armed forces when they are able to come up with an application that we can make.”
Through 2019-21, they worked to miniaturise and indigenise the drones and added LED lights instead of payload.
Botlab Dynamics’ business has almost doubled from last year, Ahlawat said without disclosing numbers.
The startup will have a total funding of Rs 40 crore once it closes an investment by a real estate firm next week, she added.
For the next 1-2 years, it will focus on competing internationally for light show projects. The strategy is to focus on African and West Asian markets, as the competition from China and Russia focuses on the West, Ahlawat said.
The company has shows lined up for Oman and Angola next year, she said.
Ahlawat believes that with drone tech, India, which has been known for software, has the potential to make a mark in the hardware industry and change the narrative.