Agnishwar Jayaprakash of Garuda Aerospace on Scaling Made-in-India Drones and Leading the Future of Aerial Tech

StartupTalky presents Recap'25, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2025 and discuss their vision for the future.

India’s drone ecosystem has rapidly evolved from hobby-grade experimentation to mission-critical national infrastructure, with adoption rising across agriculture, enterprises, defence, and disaster management. At the forefront of this transformation is Garuda Aerospace, a homegrown drone manufacturer and full-stack solutions provider building indigenous UAVs for sectors ranging from farming to high-altitude rescue and battlefield logistics.

In this edition of Recap’25, StartupTalky speaks with Agnishwar Jayaprakash, Founder & CEO of Garuda Aerospace, who shares how the company strengthened its defence portfolio, expanded compliant manufacturing, embraced AI-powered autonomy, and scaled national training pipelines. He reflects on the evolution of India’s drone regulations, emerging opportunities in global Drone-as-a-Service markets, and Garuda’s long-term vision of creating an Atmanirbhar drone ecosystem backed by deep-tech R&D, strategic collaborations, and a rapidly growing services network.

StartupTalky: Garuda Aerospace has grown significantly since its founding in 2015. Can you share the core motivation behind starting the company and how that vision has evolved over the years?

Mr. Agnishwar Jayaprakash: The core motivation to founding Garuda in 2015 was very simple: finding an actual, viable way to serve society and give back to India in a way that’s meaningful. We identified a way we could do this by using drones - an invention that people used to see as entertaining toys. We turned them into a solution for real, critical matters that could cause on-ground change, from farm productivity to surveying infrastructure to aiding in devastating disasters. Over-time, the vision remains the same in serving India first, but that has evolved into a bigger vision: creating an Atmanirbhar Bharat with full-stack drone platforms with manufacturing, services, training and deep-tech R&D that makes India the go-to provider for drones solutions instead of our global competitors.

StartupTalky: With over 30 drone types and numerous specialised services, which innovations or products launched in the past year are you most proud of, and why?

Mr. Agnishwar Jayaprakash: The proudest achievement this year was when we showed how a Made-in-India company could manufacture and deploy a full family of specialised defence and rescue UAVs (Avalanche Victim Drone, Swarm Drone, Jawan Drone, Canister Dropping Drone and the upgraded multipurpose Droni 2.0) without depending on foreign support. These drones can cover high‑altitude rescue, frontline soldier support, swarm operations and rapid battlefield logistics. Having the facility inaugurated by the Union Minister of State validates years of R&D, manufacturing investment and ecosystem-building.

StartupTalky: How has the drone industry in India changed recently, both in terms of technology adoption and the regulatory landscape, and how has Garuda adapted?

Mr. Agnishwar Jayaprakash: Drones were previously just a curiosity but now they are finally being seen as an industry that leads to critical infrastructure: farmers, PSUs, large enterprises and governments now see drones as standard tools, not experiments. Thanks to progressive policies on the regulatory side as well as the clarification of categories for how drones operate has enabled Garuda to scale and we’ve definitely done so by formalising training, building compliant manufacturing, and co-creating solutions with partners like Thales for example.​

StartupTalky: Which key metrics—such as market share, flight hours, client adoption, or others—do you track to assess Garuda’s growth and performance?

Mr. Agnishwar Jayaprakash: At Garuda Aerospace, we track a blend of operational and commercial metrics to assess our growth. Key indicators include client adoption and recurring business from enterprise, PSU, and government sectors, along with cumulative flight hours, fleet utilisation, and mission success rates across spraying, surveying, and industrial operations. We monitor market share in agri-drones, DaaS, and RPTO training, supported by the number of DGCA-certified pilots we produce. Product performance, SOP compliance, and trial outcomes—especially in defence and logistics—guide our technological progress. These combine with revenue growth, order book strength, and tender wins to reflect our overall performance.

StartupTalky: Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in drone technology. How is Garuda leveraging AI across operations, product development, and services, and what impact has it had so far?

Mr. Agnishwar Jayaprakash: AI is the new buzzword for a reason and at Garuda we are using AI in all the ways we can to achieve excellence. It’s at the heart of Garuda’s products and operations: from agri drones that use AI/ML for precise spraying and crop analytics, to inspection and mapping solutions that turn raw imagery into actionable insights for clients. On the operations side, AI-driven planning, data processing and predictive maintenance improve utilisation of the fleet, while on the product side, AI-enabled autonomy and decision-support are what differentiate Indian-made systems in global markets.​

StartupTalky: With plans like Drone City, defence collaborations, and the upcoming IPO, what opportunities do you foresee for Garuda in India and globally over the next 3–5 years, and how do you plan to scale your team, products, and services?

Mr. Agnishwar Jayaprakash: Over the next 3–5 years, the biggest opportunities are in scaling as a global Drone-as-a-Service and manufacturing player, deepening presence in defence and security, and expanding high-impact use cases across agriculture, logistics, smart cities and infrastructure, with Indian-designed platforms and AI-led software deployed in multiple geographies. To support this, the focus will be on expanding manufacturing capacity, investing aggressively in engineering and AI talent, and growing the pilot training and services network so utilisation and mission readiness stay high at scale, while strategic partnerships in defence, UTM and AI help accelerate innovation and keep solutions affordable and mission-focused for both domestic and international customers.

Explore more Recap'25 interviews here.