ARMED WITH IDEAS

From working with the military to dabbling in stealth tech and semiconductors to selling systems to NATO and Mossad, India's defence startups are thriving

- SANJIB KR BARUAH

There is this thing about bombs," says Abhishek Jain. "They shouldn't explode when they are not supposed to, but have to when they are meant to" The 44-year-old is in the business of making dumb bombs smart.

Chief business officer of the Pune-headquartered Zeus Numerix, a company that is among the trailblazers in India's defence startup narrative, Jain's story began in 2004 when, as a 24-year-old with an MTech in aerospace engineering from IIT Bombay, he began to think what next.

Son of a government defence auditor and hailing from the small town of Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, Jain got together with two of his IIT Bombay laboratory colleagues—Basant Gupta (then 23) and Irshad Khan (27). Along with their mentor Professor Gopal Shevare, they founded Zeus Numerix. Gupta was designated the chief executive officer, Khan the chief operating officer and Shevare became the director. Zeus Numerix was the first company to register with IIT Bombay's Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

"When we started in 2004, my monthly salary was ₹13,500, low, even then, for an IIT passout," says Jain. "It was just enough for dal-roti. But we did well and, except for 200910, we have made profits." He shies away from revealing how much he is earning now.

Zeus Numerix now makes smart drone-dropped bombs. After starting with ownership of one software for large-missile aerodynamics, the company ventured into structural design of missiles, guidance and control, electromagnetic and stealth technology.

Jain, chairman of the StartUp Fo-rum of the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM), recounts his company's high points. "We did critical work in integrating the BrahMos missile with the Sukhoi Su-30," he says. "The first water tunnel test of the indigenous LCA (light combat aircraft) was done in our laboratory."