IdeaForge Technology Pvt. Ltd, the company which manufactures Netra unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), used in the recent Nepal earthquake and the Uttarakhand flood relief operations, is in talks to raise $10 million Series A funding. The company was started by five IIT Bombay graduates — Ankit Mehta, Ashish Bhat, Rahul Singh, Vipul Joshi, and Amardeep Singh — in 2008. Netra UAVs are a collaborative effort with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The firm’s drones were used to monitor processions during the Ganesh immersions in Mumbai in 2012 and in rescue and search operations during the Saharanpur riots, the Pune landslide, and for crowd surveillance at the Jagannath Rath Yatra. “We hope to close the round by early next year,” Ankit Mehta, Co-Founder and CEO of the Navi Mumbai-based IdeaForge Technology, told The Hindu . However, he refused to divulge the names of investors the firm is in talks with. The firm counts the National Security Guard, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, National Disaster Response Force, and the Delhi Police among its top clients. […]
