Noida-based drone manufacturing startup Raphe mPhibr has raised $100 million in an equity funding round led by Silicon Valley investor General Catalyst, the company said in a press release.
The round, which values the eight-year-old startup at nearly $900 million, also saw participation from existing investors, including stock market investor Amal Parikh, Think Investments, and other family offices.
In one of the largest financing rounds for an Indian military drone maker, the $100 million raise takes the company’s total funding to $145 million. According to Venture Intelligence, Indian drone makers have raised a total of $151 million in the last five years.
In an interaction with ET, the company’s founder and CEO, Vivek Mishra, said that the fresh capital raised will be deployed for improving its research and development (R&D) capabilities while also expanding its manufacturing facility. Raphe mPhibr currently has a manufacturing unit in Noida that has been expanded to 650,000 square feet from around 70,000 sq ft, and this will support production of around 1,500-2,000 larger units and around 4,000 smaller drones every year.
Neeraj Arora, managing director at General Catalyst, said, “The products emerging from Raphe mPhibr are already making a tangible impact on the ground, signalling what we believe will be a monumental shift.
Their work is not only accelerating India’s path to strategic self-reliance but also embodies the essence of our ‘Global Resilience’ thesis at General Catalyst—building for a future that is secure, sovereign, and sustainable.”
The investor has backed several other defence tech startups, including US-based companies such as Anduril Industries and Vannevar Labs and Europe-based AI defence tech company Helsing.
The funding comes at a time when the demand for locally made military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has increased, as witnessed recently during the skirmish between India and Pakistan that saw both countries deploy drone systems.
As per a Reuters report in May, which cited Drone Federation of India’s president Smit Shah, India plans to invest heavily in local industry and could spend as much as $470 million on UAVs over the next 12 to 24 months, roughly three times pre-conflict levels.Founded in 2017 by Vivek Mishra and Vikash Mishra, the startup designs and manufactures a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which include a drone swarm platform, a high-altitude logistics drone, a surveillance drone, and a compact maritime patrol system. The company said that several of these systems are already being used by Indian defence forces.
According to Tracxn data, Raphe mPhibr, which competes with the likes of listed player IdeaForge and unlisted companies Garuda Aerospace and Tata Advanced Systems, reported revenue of Rs 86 crore in fiscal 2024—more than double that of Rs 42 crore in FY23.
The company also posted a profit of Rs 9 crore in FY24.Raphe mPhibr was among the 12 drone manufacturers shortlisted by the central government in 2022 for the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for drones and drone components.
Earlier this week, IdeaForge said that it has secured an order worth about Rs 137 crore for hybrid mini-UAV systems from the Indian Army through the emergency procurement route.
