How a Former International Swimmer Built a Rs. 2,000 Crore Drone Company from the Brink of Bankruptcy

He was about to shut down his four year old drone start-up Garuda Aerospace in 2020-now valued at about Rs.2,000 crore- when coronavirus infected the global populace and in turn the economy.

But the pious Agnishwar believed that his Garuda – Garuda is the vehicle for the Hindu God Lord Vishnu- cannot be downed.

Curiously it was the same coronavirus that came as a saviour for his business in the form of sanitisation of the buildings to prevent the virus spread.

Agnishwar Jayaprakash  used drones to sanitise government buildings during the pandemic (Photos: Special Arrangement)

“At that point of time coronavirus was something new and world over people did not know how to prevent the virus from spreading. People were wearing masks, washing hands and infected persons were isolated. In some places roads and buildings were sanitised,” the 34-year old Agnishwar Jayaprakash, Founder and CEO mused to The Weekend Leader (TWL).

“We had our agriculture drone that sprayed pesticides and pitched first to the Tamil Nadu government that tall buildings could be properly sanitised with drones. A demonstration was made to the Tamil Nadu government officials. Though we didn’t get the order, the experiment got wide media coverage,” Agnishwar reminisced.

The idea for spraying pesticides came to him because of the TV show he had produced earlier.

“We had used drones to shower chocolates on our reality show participants. At that point of time, drones were largely used for videography,” he said.

Soon Garuda Aerospace got orders from different state governments to sanitise government buildings in their cities. However, there were challenges. Agnishwar, an international swimmer who had won several medals, including an Asian Gold for India, and was once ranked among the top 50 swimmers in the world, decided to take up the challenge

While at the pool he didn’t swim against the tide, in business the headwinds were strong.

“The lockdown was in place. We had to get permission for our drone pilots to travel inter-state. In one instance Air India - then owned by the Indian government - had airlifted two of our drones and pilots in their cargo plane to carry out sanitisation operations in Chandigarh and Varanasi,”Agnishwar said.

Sanitisation orders from Smart Cities and other regions started pouring in for Garuda. Additionally, MPs and MLAs began requesting drone-based sanitisation services in their constituencies, giving Garuda pan-India recognition.

In 2020, the locust attack in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan opened up yet another business opportunity for Garuda, further proving the efficacy of its agricultural drones.

Soon the revenues for the boot strapped company began to trickle in.

It was SpaceX’s Elon Musk liking a tweet of Agnishwar that attracted the eyes of the UK based investor Silver Swan Investments.

“We got our first investment of $1 million,” Agnishwar said.

Agnishwar chose not to join his father's business, and decided to carve his own path

Around this time people also realised the various uses of drones and orders for mapping from Survey of India, detecting faults in windmills and others came in.

“From bankruptcy in February 2020 to Rs.15 crore in FY22 the fortunes had turned full circle which in a way is unbelievable except for God’s grace,” Agnishwar said.

In between he got married to Rithika, daughter of BJP’s Bangalore Central constituency MP P.C.Mohan. Mohan and Agnishwar had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and invited him for the wedding.

“During our meeting, Modi was speaking about drones and its uses. At the spur of the moment I had invited him to inaugurate our upcoming factory. His office later called me to know about the details. I had to run against the clock to get the factory ready so that Modi can inaugurate the same at the said date,” Agnishwar said.

The flagging off of the Garuda Kisan Drone Yatra in 2022 by Modi saw 100 drones take off in 100 villages across the country at the same time gave the company great mileage.

Agnishwar empathetically said that he did not use his father-in-law’s name for his business.

“Had that been the case, Garuda should have bagged some orders from the Karnataka government. Moreover, my grand uncle was AIADMK heavyweight late Madhusudhanan. I also didn’t get any business from the Tamil Nadu government,” he remarked.

Meanwhile, the central government began to liberalise the drone sector and finance for agricultural drone purchases were also made easy.

Garuda on its part began inking business agreements with global majors like Lockheed Martin Canada CDL Systems, Elbit Systems, Thales, HAL and BEML.

Agnishwar also roped in Indian test cricket M.S.Dhoni as the brand ambassador-cum-investor for Garuda.

"Earlier, in 2020, we had tried to rope him in, but at that point in time, we couldn’t afford him. However, by 2022, we were able to. His face makes people in rural North India reach out to us,” he said.

In FY23 Garuda raised about Rs.20 crore from investors with an enterprise valuation of Rs.800 crore. The company had closed FY23 with a turnover of Rs.47 crore and the next fiscal the turnover grew to Rs.110 crore.

“We are now working towards our initial public offering (IPO) sometime next year. That will be the major test,” Agnishwar said.

Looking back, Agnishwar thanked God for his current position.

“I declined medical seat – sports quota-and opted for engineering to focus on my swimming. Instead of joining my father’s (R.N.Jayaprakash, Promoter of Agni Group) business, I wanted to be on my own and founded Ignite-India, an innovation ecosystem established in over 70,000 schools and colleges across India. Then came Garuda Aerospace which was one of the ideas at Ignite-India,” he said.

Agnishwar's wife, Rithika, is involved in the business and oversees the administration

“My father today proudly says that I didn’t enter the family business but stood on my own and built a business that is more valuable than his own 25-year old business group.”

Agnishwar’s mother Bhavani Jayaprakash is a Doctorate in Algal Biology and Chairperson, Agni College of Technology and brother Vishnu Jayaprakash, a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, has founded AgZen Technologies in the US.

While wife Rithika takes care of Garuda’s administration, the curd rice lover and the Harvard Business School alumni Agnishwar’s regret is that he is not able to spend quality time with his baby son Rudra. - ©TWL