TechEagle, the drone startup of the country founded in 2015 is making healthcare access easier in disconnected remote areas.
When were you founded & What is the product/service you provide?
Vikram Singh Meena, an IIT Kanpur alumnus, started TechEagle Innovations in 2015.
TechEagle is a leading Drone delivery firm that specialises in deploying an intrinsic logistics system for a fast, efficient, and robust supply chain network for healthcare, e-commerce, hyperlocal, maritime, and defence industries using our made in India Hybrid e-VTOL Technology.
We take the utmost pride in being a deep tech firm with extensive aviation and engineering experience.
With over 9 years of tech & operational experience, we specialise in designing, manufacturing, and deploying best-in-class Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or Drones.
We deliver best-in-class drone delivery services and equipment for civil and defence applications. The company’s current product line includes a wholly Made in India Hybrid e-VTOL Drone fleet that can deliver packages up to 100 kilometres in less than 50 minutes.
TechEagle has also been collaborating with a number of state governments (such as Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and others) as well as large corporations (such as Zomato, Jeena & Company, and others) to enable them to use drone-based logistics.
What is the company’s long and short-term vision? Where do you see your industry going in the next five years?
By launching Gurugram-based TechEagle in 2015, he began starting down the route of tackling challenges many industries and citizens faced with respect to delayed deliveries and consuming investments, with a mission to build the world’s largest Drone Logistics Airline to save and improve billions of lives.
Our mission and goals are clear, and every member of our team is committed to them.
We want to build the world’s largest on-demand drone logistics airline to deliver packages in minutes and save people’s lives, time, and money.
We’ve partnered with numerous state governments to fulfil some of our goals, and we’re always working to achieve the wider aim of manufacturing and building drones that correspond with our vision.
Now as the drone industry is on the rise, so are we, thanks to our years of experience and cutting-edge technology.
The liberalised Drone Rules 2021 and Budget 22 mentioning Drone Shakti shows the clear intent of the central Govt to accelerate the growth of the Drone industry in India.
With this in mind, we anticipate that the drone business in India will grow exponentially in the next 3-5 years, finding applications in a variety of niches and industries.
Drone use eliminates a lot of wasteful investments in the storage and delivery of items that can be readily transported with a drone in minutes.
These elements will have a significant impact on the industry’s growth. Finally, while we can’t put a time limit on any type of development, it’s safe to assume that in the coming 5 years, the drone industry will be a $10+ billion industry in India.
How did you get inspiration for the Company? How did you go about researching and validating the idea?
Vikram, the co-founder of TechEagle, witnessed his family and the greater community suffer as a result of the lack of basic and better medical facilities.
Since he grew up in a village with limited access to healthcare and logistics for the same.
Vikram was resolved to fix this critical problem one day after losing loved ones to snake bites and mishaps.
He was exposed to aviation as a hobby during his undergraduate years in IIT Kanpur, which provided him with an excellent understanding of research, development, and operational elements of aviation and drones.
During his college years, he also competed in and won a number of national and international contests.
He met the second co-founder, Anshu Abhishek, who was a student at SRM and was adept in the field of aviation and drone when just a few people were aware of it, about halfway through the path of founding TechEagle.
The two founders combined their theoretical and practical understanding of the different difficulties that may be addressed by having a safe, secure, and reliable UAV (or drone)-based delivery system and began the process of putting this notion into action.
TechEagle currently employs a group of highly skilled and valuable individuals who collaborate to study, design, and manufacture drones in-house for serving a variety of industries, including healthcare, marine, defence, hyperlocal, and food delivery.
Is the company funded? If yes, how many rounds & how much funding, If No, then are you open to funding?
Currently, the company is seed funded with USD 0.5 Million from India Accelerator, Vinners and other marquee investors.
We are open to raising the next round and already gaining good interest from VCs for the same.
How does the product work & What problems does it solve?
We specialise in e-VTOL technology delivery drones that don’t need a runway to take off or land, Our Drones takes off vertically like a helicopter and convert to a fixed-wing mode like a passenger aircraft to cruise the larger distances while delivering the package again converts back to helicopter mode to land in a very small area. Our innovative products are saving lives, money and time.
In addition, we provide low-cost, long-range, heavy-payload drones equipped with advanced AI technology for manoeuvring and avoiding danger in harsh settings.
TechEagle drones place a high focus on safety and security, and we create extensive fail-safe measures to ensure that both the cargo and the UAV are safe.
TechEagle is dedicated to deploying and producing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)/Drones for the greater good of society by improving the healthcare system and delivery network across the country.
Our Drone logistics Airline is solving the pain point of slow & in-efficient logistics for last and mid mile.
What are your USP and innovation? How are you different from others?
While most of our drone models use redundant aircraft technologies and components such as rotors, aeroplane wings, batteries, and signal receivers, our biggest USPs are our advanced Drone manufacturing capabilities, which include the best range in the country (100+km), as well as the safety and security features associated with drone operations.
At TechEagle, we place a high priority on ensuring that all goods and services transported by our drones arrive securely at their destination.
We create detailed fail-safe plans for each circumstance that could have a long-term impact on the delivery process.
We feel that our major USPs, which differentiate our endeavour from other rivals and will benefit us in the long term, are the best capabilities products with made-in-India technology and safety & security at the right price.
What are some of your competitors & what advantage do you have over them? & Briefly explain your revenue model?
Globally, Companies like Google Wing, Prime Time Air, Wingcopter, and Zipline are working on similar problem statements for their geographies.
We have two types of advantages over others. The first is better capabilities, safety, and security, which is ensured by technologies such as redundant propulsion, communication, numerous layers of failsafe plans, battery failsafe, and GPS denied scenarios.
Secondly, we have better unit economics advantages over our competition. When Technology is developed at a reasonable price, it becomes a competitive advantage.
Our revenue strategy, or business model, revolves mostly around offering drones as a service to other businesses and governments in the speciality of healthcare, maritime, defence, e-commerce, and hyperlocal deliveries.
We charge these businesses based on the distance the drone must go and the payload weight. The TechEagle team handles the delivery’s bureaucratic aspects as well.
What difficulties did you encounter when you started the company & Were you impacted by the Covid outbreak?
When TechEagle first began off, the company ran across about 2-3 issues. Regulatory, monetary, and a lack of the right individuals in the team were the key issues.
If we get into more detail about the regulatory issue, TechEagle has witnessed the drone sector in India revolutionise by being an integral part of it.
Despite the fact that drones were banned in 2014, we chose to create TechEagle in 2015.
Only the most insanely ambitious, such as ourselves, could imagine beginning civil applications in that era. From 2015 to 2018, we collaborated with small industry organisations to streamline regulations.
Finally, in September of 2018, CAR 1.0 for Drones was released. While it was hardly the ideal set of laws one could hope for, it was the first major step toward establishing a legal framework for drones.
Eventually, the industry began to comply with and implement the laws on the ground, but it rapidly realised that these restrictions were not scalable, and it began working together to develop a new policy framework.
After a lot of work, the UAS Rules 2021 were announced in March 2021, and they were a licence raj (i.e., startups had to get approvals for RnD and any changes made during the RnD cycle also).
There were over 50 forms that needed to be completed, which was impossible to implement and was not yielding any results.
As a result, industry and other stakeholders banded together once more to fight for the appropriate approach, and the union government listened to the industry’s voice and repealed the UAS Rules 2021 in favour of the liberalised “Drone Rules 2021.”
Since then, the government has taken a number of progressive actions, including the PLI Scheme, Airspace Maps, Drone Import Ban, Drone Shakti, and the unveiling of the Kisan Drone in Budget 2022 by the Honorable Finance Minister.
Drone design, manufacturing, and production need a significant amount of capital investment, and TechEagle has had difficulties with this in the past.
During our earliest stages, we ran into a number of issues regarding the same.
Initially, in 2015, the correct set of personnel that fit the company’s philosophy was unavailable, which slowed down the process of expansion from a technological standpoint.
Now, we’re a group of over 25+ smart and driven people who are constantly working to bring the concept of an elaborate drone delivery network to life.
When it comes to Covid, the industry has seen a significant rise as civil organisations recognise the value of UAVs when human aviation is unavailable.
Drones were used properly during the COVID-19 scenario, and TechEagle drones were used in cooperation with Delhi and NCR Police to monitor and ensure the upholding of government-sanctioned lockdown.
Even with these advantages, TechEagle’s growth in terms of development and production was hampered due to the closing down of offices during the lockdowns due to the nature of work-related with the manufacturing of drones.
What are your future plans & launches?
Now as the drone industry is on the rise, so are we, thanks to our years of experience and cutting-edge technology.
TechEagle plans to grow its supply chain network over the next 12 months by working with additional governments and businesses to offer services and goods.
Our team is constantly trying to bring new capabilities to markets, such as increased range, payload carrying capacity, and speed.
Current company size, work culture, Hiring Funda
We are a group of more than 25 highly motivated, talented, and creative individuals who are working toward a common objective of providing drones as a service to businesses and governments to address last-mile and mid-mile delivery demands.
Our workplace atmosphere is aggressive yet people friendly and team members have a lot of freedom to innovate and build smart solutions.
We tend to gravitate towards individuals that connect with our vision and mission and passionately believe in it when employing new experts, in addition to their skill sets and referrals.
How did you launch your company when you had just 0 users. Which channels/ tools/strategies worked the most for acquiring the first 100 users?
To begin, we established a wider vision, objective, and aim for how we planned to enable it.
We began with developing products that would solve the ground problems of logistics. After that, we did a number of demos/PoCs for our initial customers, and that’s how we got initial projects.
A piece of advice for the readers.
The drone business is expected to expand fast, and last-mile & mid mile logistics will soon undergo a paradigm shift to a drone-based logistics delivery network.
In the long run, the industry will be worth $100 billion, creating plenty of job possibilities and allowing for a more efficient transport system around the world by affecting how we practise agriculture, wartime management, cargo delivery, and surveillance.
I have a piece of advice for potential readers:
Govts & Enterprises: It is the best time to be at the forefront of adopting Drone-based logistics for companies and Govts who are skimming through the lucrativeness and usefulness of new-age technologies in their operations.
Drone delivery, contrary to popular assumption, is not a futuristic concept, but rather a new reality. It effectively reduces wasteful investments in a delivery system that wastes both time and money.
Investors: India has a good pool of Drone startups, who are building best in class solutions for the world, and the market is growing rapidly. It is the best time to bet on startups with a larger vision, good team, and best product.
Youth: We recommend that people interested in this field of study can focus on gaining the specialised skill set and knowledge required in the Drone industry because it is going to be the need of the future.