Cleared for Lift-Off

Even as iDEX shows promise and defence- tech gains momentum, funding gaps, design roadblocks and bureaucratic inertia constrain the programme's growth

- Nabodita Ganguly and Shruti Tripathi

The message from the government landed at around 4 pm one afternoon in early May—brief, firm and laced with urgency. The request was for a deployment of drones. Operation Sindoor was about to begin.

But even before the call came, the team at this defence-tech startup was in action. “We were already in a trial run,” says its founder, who wished to remain unnamed. Their drones—built for nighttime surveillance and designed to operate in GPS-denied zones—weren't a reaction to the operation.

They were the result of months of preparation, built on groundwork laid as part of the company’s participation in the Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) programme, a Ministry of Defence initiative that promotes innovation and supports startups building for strategic national needs.

The startup had joined the programme nearly two years earlier. But instead of rushing to prototype, it spent almost a year refining the problem statement—part of an open challenge under iDEX. “User validation is much more important than telling the world you've built something,” says its founder. Over six months, the team worked closely with defence veterans—those who had lived experience of the problem—and created a 13-page problem statement addressing the challenge.

Once submitted, the solution went through multiple layers of government screening and filtering: compliance checks, quality-assurance benchmarks and standard validations. iDEX, the founder says, brought a discipline most startups never encounter. “We're used to agility”, he says. “But iDEX taught us how to align speed with structure and rigour.” That discipline, combined with constant mentorship and feedback, influenced core design choices. So, when the request came, the team didn’t begin work—they continued it.

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