- **DroneAcharya Aerial Innovations began as a pilot school and has since built itself into a full-stack drone company that makes the machines, trains the people who fly them, and then sells both the hardware and the data-capture services to defence forces and big enterprises - a closed loop where each part feeds the next**. It was the first drone company to list on India’s BSE SME platform, in December 2022, and a pivotal shift came in FY24 when it ventured into drone manufacturing, set up a manufacturing unit, and had products under DGCA evaluation under the ‘Make in India’ banner, moving beyond its original identity as a pure training and services outfit. The recurring approach is a three-pillar model - training, manufacturing, and defence/enterprise solutions - where the classroom informs product design, the factory builds the capability, and the solutions arm delivers it in the field, often to the same customers. # Business segments Three engines that feed each other - a nationwide training network that builds the workforce, a manufacturing line that produces the drones, and a defence-and-enterprise arm that puts both to work in the field. ## 1. DGCA-certified training: the workforce factory **It is India’s largest private drone-pilot school by output, running a growing network of owned and franchised centres that turn out certified pilots for government departments, corporates, and its own ecosystem.** - **The licence is the entry ticket** - the company is a DGCA-certified Remote Pilot Training Organization (RPTO) authorized to train pilots across Micro, Small, and Medium drone categories (up to 150 kg), which means its graduates can legally fly commercially in India. - **More pilots than any private rival** - in FY24 it trained 391 DGCA-certified drone pilots, the highest number among private organizations, and by FY25 it had certified over 1,500 pilots across five new centres. - **Centres on campuses and inside government departments** - its DGCA-certified RPTOs are embedded inside institutions like IIT Ropar, Rashtriya Raksha University, and the Karnataka Forest Academy, giving it direct access to students and large government training contracts such as the one to train 240 forest-department officials. - **Franchises multiply the footprint** - beyond its own centres, it uses a franchise model to set up “DroneAcharya-Powered” training organizations, with early franchises in Jabalpur, Jaipur, and Noida, and a deal with Tata Strive to launch 30 more centres across India. - **Courses go far beyond a pilot licence** - the catalogue includes application-based modules in drone building, aerial cinematography, GIS data processing, and disaster management, and it has already placed more than 50 graduates into drone companies across India. ## 2. Manufacturing: the hardware engine **It designs and builds drones in Pune for agriculture, surveillance, and combat, earning DGCA Type Certification for its flagship sprayer and running high-altitude trials of its tactical FPV drones for the Indian Army.** - **From school to factory** - the company entered manufacturing only in FY24, transforming from a pure services business into a maker of its own drones under the ‘Make in India’ programme, with a supply chain and working models built in-house. - **A certified agricultural workhorse** - the AgriVeer, a multi-purpose spraying drone with a master-slave training system, received DGCA Type Certification in February 2025, clearing it for commercial sale across India for farming, education, and RPTO training. - **Tactical drones tested at the roof of the world** - the Yodha series of FPV (First Person View) drones has been demonstrated at 17,800 feet in Lachung, with kamikaze-capable variants shown at 15,400 feet, proving they can operate in the thin air and GPS-denied environments that India’s northern borders demand. - **A reseller network that fills the catalogue** - alongside its own products, it distributes other manufacturers’ drones, including Airbots’ agricultural sprayers and Zuppa’s surveillance drones (whose components are 80% indigenous and already used by Indian defence forces), giving it a broader product line without carrying all the R&D cost. ## 3. Defence and enterprise solutions: the field-deployment arm **It sells finished drone systems, data-intelligence services, and custom surveillance packages directly to the Indian Armed Forces and large corporates, turning the company’s training and manufacturing output into operational contracts.** - **Direct sales to the military** - in August 2025 it won a work order from the Indian Army to supply combat-ready FPV drones, surveillance drones, training drones, and a full drone lab, adding to 14 Ministry of Defence projects completed in FY24. - **Drones-as-a-service for big infrastructure** - it flies large-scale survey missions, including a 350 km UAV-based LiDAR and RGB survey for the Bengaluru Ring Rail Project and a 242 sq km drone survey for the Dholera Special Investment Region in Gujarat. - **Data intelligence, not just pictures** - the enterprise offering goes beyond flying to include GIS data processing and analytics, with projects secured for the oil and gas sector in Qatar and drone-and-GIS work in the UK. - **Consulting opens doors for the hardware** - a consultancy arm helps businesses and government bodies navigate drone adoption, compliance, and integration, which creates demand for the company’s own drones and trained pilots downstream. - **Exclusive resale rights extend the reach** - it holds exclusive rights to sell SISIR Radar’s satellite and payload products in Southeast Asia and Africa, adding a high-end radar layer to its solutions portfolio without having to develop the technology itself. # Group structure and partners **A parent company in Pune with two Indian manufacturing-and-services subsidiaries, a UAE trading vehicle, and a Thai associate, stitched together by a web of global co-manufacturing and resale partnerships.** - **Two wholly owned Indian subsidiaries** - PYI Technologies (acquired in stages, fully owned by May 2025) manufactures and trades drones and electronic spares, while DroneAcharya Miltech (also fully owned by May 2025) handles manufacturing and services. - **A Middle East outpost** - Drone Entry Aerial Services L.L.C. was incorporated in Abu Dhabi in December 2024 with a 99% stake, licensed for aerial surveys, drone sales and leasing, and surveillance by drones, though it had not yet begun active operations as of the FY25 report. - **A Southeast Asian beachhead** - the associate company Drone Entry (Thailand) Co. Ltd., with an office at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, executes export orders and targets markets across Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Indonesia. - **Manufacturing alliances span three continents** - partnerships with Gridbots (India), American Blast Systems (USA), Volatus Aerospace (Canada), Krattworks (Estonia), and RV Connex (Thailand) give it co-production and distribution reach from North America to Southeast Asia, with a stated focus on non-Chinese supply chains.