CONQUERING SPACE, WATER & ENEMY

Aerospace and defence startups battle it out for space in the warzone as innovation remains key.

- By P.B. Jayakumar

WHEN SANJAY NEKKANTI went to do his Master's in space technology in Sweden, the choice was not random: he had been hooked when a guest lecturer in college inspired him to build a nanosatellite with some friends. Returning in 2012, he set up Dhruva Space to make satellites but could not get any funding. Nekkanti had to work for seven years on other projects while pitching his idea to 160-odd investors till he got his first funding ($50 million). Dhruva's first commercial order was to design and make solar arrays for satellites.

While Dhruva was looking for funding, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), beginning in 2013, launched satellites for other countries at costs that Western agencies could not match. Since 2022, eight Dhruva payloads have gone into orbits. Revenues grew from ₹15 lakh in FY20, to ₹13.5 crore in FY24 and could touch ₹30 crore this year. Dhruva Space has an order book of ₹398 crore and could end FY26 with revenues of ₹120 crore.

“We hope to touch ₹1,000 crore revenue in FY28,” says Nekkanti. Dhruva has built a satellite manufacturing factory on Hyderabad’s outskirts to make 12 to 30 satellites annually.

Around the time Nekkanti was dreaming of satellites, Merchant Navy Captain Nikunj Parashar decided to quit the sea and try his hand at making equipment the Navy needed. The trigger was the 2008 attack on Mumbai by Pakistani intruders who had landed on small boats and killed 166 people over four days. Parashar launched Sagar Defence Engineering in 2015 to make autonomous surface vehicles such as decoy platforms for use in gunnery practice or for surveys and monitoring. But Parashar had to wait till 2019 to get his first venture capital.