The Chennai-based company said it chose the island nation as the local drone policies were still developing and the new government was keen to promote technology and precision in agriculture and industries, seeking to reduce dependence on tourism.
“We are traditionally a precision agricultural drone company. This year, we’ve seen revenues touch over Rs 100 crore and we saw a lot of attention coming in from overseas for our precision agriculture drones in particular. So we felt this was the right time to start making measured and cautious steps to expanding in overseas markets,” Jayaprakash said. “Sri Lanka because of its proximity to India, its developing drone regulation and smaller market was the perfect launchpad for us before venturing into other regions.”
Apart from agriculture, the company is also looking at homeland security and defence in terms of industrial and structural damage assessment, as Sri Lanka has a lot of infrastructure development ongoing, such as ports, airports and roads.
“Monitoring the progress of these projects as well as structural damage assessment to check whether the new bridges are breaking down or the roads are caving in, these sorts of surveillance drones are the most cost effective methodology to do it and that’s the reason why any developing country is where Garuda is very keen on expanding to because the use cases of drones are significant,” Jayaprakash said.
He said Sri Lanka is about three-four years behind India in terms of regulatory frameworks, which presented an opportunity for the company to apply its learnings from India.
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Garuda Aerospace has already established operations in Sri Lanka, including having a team and an office there. It has also onboarded a local partner to help with on-ground operations and will begin deploying its first drones from there soon.The company is also keen on expanding operations in the US. It has allocated close to $10 million for its global expansion plans.
“We have opened up our office in the US. We will start operations fairly soon. We are applying for models for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) license for our drones there as well,” Jayaprakash said. “Once operations in US and Europe and these developed nations start, I believe that it will overshadow the amount of money that we will make in India, because from a geopolitical perspective, the entire world is looking for drones which are made in India.”
Garuda Aerospace is also looking to start manufacturing and assembling certain critical components in the countries it expands operations in in order to lower costs. In India, Garuda Aerospace designs and gets the manufacturing done through contract manufacturers like Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML).
“In Sri Lanka and some of the other markets that we are looking to enter, we will probably be looking at a hybrid model, because initially at least we might have to do the manufacturing ourselves, because the wherewithal or the awareness of drones might not be there with existing players there,” Jayaprakash said. “But we are exploring certain areas where similar sort of arrangements can be worked out with contact manufacturing partners in these countries.”