The Gautam Adani-led Adani enterprise will buy 50% in General Aeronautics, a Bengaluru-based drone maker, for an undisclosed sum. M&A activity in the futuristic drone industry is on an upward curve. A day ago, publicly listed RattanIndia Enterprises bought a 60% stake in Throttle Aerospace Systems, also based in Bengaluru and involved in the drone business. It had previously made an investment in Matternet, a US-based drone logistics platform.
Adani plans to leverage its military drone and artificial intelligence/machine learning capabilities and work with General Aeronautics to provide solutions to the agricultural sector. The company, which incubates new businesses for the Ahmedabad-based group India’s third-largest conglomerate in terms of market cap has inked the deal in General Aeronautics through its 100% arm Adani Defence Systems and Technologies. The transaction is expected to be completed by July 31.
General Aeronautics, incorporated in 2016, was founded by three aerodynamicists — Abhishek Burman, Kota Harinarayana and Anutosh Moitra, according to its website. In January 2021, it had closed a Rs 6.5-crore financing led by Mela Ventures. According to startup tracker Tracxn, the company had raised $2.2 million in total as of January 2021, attracting a valuation of $8.4 million.
Not just Adani and RattanIndia, several diversified business groups have cut deals in the drone segment. In 2019, Reliance Industries had acquired majority control of Asteria, a full-stack drone technology company. Likewise, Tata Advanced Systems had acquired majority interest in Aurora Integrated Systems, a Bengaluru-based unmanned air systems manufacturer. Piramal Enterprises too had made an investment in an Israeli company Bluebird Aero Systems. The domestic unmanned aerial vehicle market is estimated to become $50 billion in size over the next 15 years, according to Niti Aayog.