Leading drone maker ideaForge gets Sebi nod for IPO

Drone maker ideaForge received Sebi's approval to raise funds through IPO. The market regulator has given a final observation letter to the company and in the regulator's parlance, an observation letter is equivalent to the approval.
The company had filed preliminary IPO papers in February earlier this year.

The public issue comprises a fresh issue of Rs 300 crore and an offer for the sale of 48.69 lakh equity shares. The offer also includes a reservation for a subscription by eligible employees.


Under the OFS, Ashish Bhat will sell 1.8 lakh shares, Amarpreet Singh will offload 8,362 shares and Nambirajan Seshadri will sell 22,600 shares. Other selling shareholders include A&E Investment LLC, Agarwal Trademart Pvt Ltd, Celesta Capital II Mauritius among others.

The company, in consultation with the lead bankers to the issue, may consider a pre-IPO placement of up to Rs 60 crore. If such placement is completed, the fresh issue size will be reduced.

The proceeds from its fresh issuance to the tune of Rs 50 crore will be utilised for repayment of certain indebtedness availed by the company, Rs 135 crore towards funding working capital requirements, Rs 40 crore for investment in product development and general corporate purposes.

ideaForge primarily caters to customers with applications for surveillance, mapping, and surveying. Its customers include the armed forces, central armed police forces, state police departments, disaster management forces, forest departments besides other civil customers.

It is one of the first few companies in India to enter the UAV market.

The Mumbai-based company is backed by marquee investors, including Infosys, Qualcomm, Celesta, Florintree, EXIM Bank, Indusage Technology Venture Fund, and Infina Finance.

Celesta currently holds a 13.35% stake in the firm, Qualcomm holds 3.79%, while Exim Bank owns 1.09%.

JM Financial and IIFL Securities are the book-running lead managers and Link Intime India is the registrar for the issue.