Drone Major ideaForge Raises INR 60 Cr In Pre-IPO Round

IPO-bound drone startup IdeaForge has reportedly raised INR 60 Cr in a pre-IPO funding round, which saw participation from institutional investors like Tata AIG General Insurance, Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund, Think Investments PCC, and 360 One Asset Management.

Banking sources told the Economic Times that ideaForge completed its pre-IPO placement at a valuation of about INR 2,500 Cr and filed its red herring prospectus (RHP) earlier this week.

As per the report, the drone startup is expected to launch its public issue at the end of June.

ideaForge did not respond to Inc42’s queries on the development.  

The startup filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in February this year. It got SEBI approval for the IPO last month. 

As per the DRHP, ideaForge’s IPO would comprise a fresh issue of shares worth INR 300 Cr and an offer for sale (OFS) of 48.7 Lakh shares. 

ideaForge’s issue size is estimated to be around INR 650 Cr, with an OFS component of about INR 350 Cr.

As per the report, promoter Ashish Bhat will sell 1.8 Lakh shares under the OFS. According to its DRHP, Bhat was supposed to offload about 1.6 Lakh shares.

Cofounder Ankit Mehta is the largest individual shareholder in the startup and holds around 3.69 Mn shares on a fully diluted basis, or a 9.93% stake. However, as per the DRHP, there is no mention of him selling his shares in the IPO. 

Meanwhile, based on both DRHP and the latest report, ideaForge’s Nambirajan Seshadri will offload 22,600 shares and Amarpreet Singh will sell 8,362 shares as part of the OFS.

The other investors that would offload their stake in the startup include Celesta Capital II Mauritius, Agarwal Trademart, and A&E Investment. 

ideaForge plans to deploy the proceeds from its IPO to pay off its INR 50 Cr debt.

Founded in 2007 by IIT Bombay graduates Bhat, Mehta, Rahul Singh, Vipul Joshi, and Amardeep Singh, ideaForge is one of the oldest drone players in the country. It claims to have over 20 patents.

ideaForge is backed by marquee names like Infosys, Florintree Enterprise, and Qualcomm.

As per the DRHP, the company posted a profit after tax (PAT) of INR 45.2 Cr in the first half of FY23 as against a loss of INR 20.73 Cr in the same period of the previous fiscal. Its operating revenue stood at INR 139.55 Cr in H1 versus INR 9.60 Cr in the year-ago period.

Recently, a drone belonging to ideaForge exploded into flames in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh, injuring four persons. Commenting on the matter, a company spokesperson then said, “We have been in the industry for more than a decade and it’s the first time an incident of this nature has been reported to us and is really unfortunate.”

Meanwhile, it must be noted that if ideaForge goes public this year, it would be the first new-age tech startup to list on the exchanges in 2023. Amid the market downturn in 2022, several Indian startups, including PharmEasy, MobiKwik, OYO, and Navi, have either postponed or suspended their plans to get listed on the bourses.

The last startup to go for IPO in the Indian market was drone startup DroneAcharya, whose shares have surged over 44% since their listing on the BSE SME platform in December 2022.