Marut Drones Bags $6.2 Mn From Lok Capital

Drone technology startup Marut Drones has secured $6.2 Mn (around INR 52.1 Cr) in a Series A funding round from Lok Capital. 

The Hyderabad-based startup plans to deploy the fresh capital to support tech-enabled food and agriculture business models. 

Apart from this, the proceeds will also be used for the development of advanced agricultural drones, expansion of channel partner network and service centres into Tier I and Tier II to serve rural customers, the company said in a statement.

The startup is also planning to set up drone agriculture service hubs to offer Drone-as-a-Service with a partnership approach.

Founded by three IIT alumni Prem Kumar Vislawath, Sai Kumar, Suraj Peddi in 2019, Marut Drones develops drone-based agri-intelligence and agri-automation solutions for precision agriculture.  

It is targeting to launch 17 new drone academics to train skilled professionals and enhance its research and development efforts to create advanced applications like direct seeding and crop monitoring, the statement added. 

“The fresh capital will also allow us to make investments in building our team, increasing our manufacturing capacity to 3000 drones per annum, and marketing to continue scaling at a rapid pace to reach a revenue target of 1000 Cr in the next five years,” said Vislawath.

Hari Krishnan, director of Lok Capital, said, “Our investment in the company will support market expansion, new technology innovations, and indigenous manufacturing efforts.

In addition to agricultural drone use, the company in its statement mentioned that they are also exploring disaster management and surveillance applications. 

Marut Drones claims to have a fleet of 750 drones and more than 1000 drone pilots across 14 states in India.

The startup has so far built four different drone models – Agricopter, Seedcopter, Marut ZAP, and Hepicopter. Its DGCA Type certified Agricopter, AG 365, serves across multiple applications – from seeing to harvesting. Marut Drones claims to have sprayed over 10K acres of land.

The investment comes at a time when many new drone tech startups are eyeing the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) ecosystem. 

In September, a similar startup Drone Destination signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with agritech startup DeHaat to offer drone solutions for Indian farmers.