Geospatial software and digital mapping company MapMyIndia, listed as CE Info Systems, has announced a strategic investment of Rs 7 crore for a 20% stake in drone solutions startup Indrones.
Through this strategic investment, the two companies will jointly offer drones and drone-based solutions for use cases like surveying, mapping, real-time monitoring, and inspections.
“Investment in Indrones will augment our solutions and offerings based on drones, through which we can deliver on more use cases and needs of both our base of enterprise customers across industry verticals and to consumers,” said Rakesh Verma, chairman and managing director, MapmyIndia.
Indrones manufactures drones and provides end-to-end solutions for smart cities, construction, agriculture, and oil and gas, among other use cases. The company plans to use this funding to scale up operations, expand hours of flying experience, deliver larger projects to customers, and build next-generation autonomous drones. On the other hand, MapmyIndia seeks to benefit from the drone-collected data to offer high-definition and 3D maps through its MappIs app.
Shares of CE Info Systems ended Monday's trading session at Rs 1,125 apiece, recording a gain of 2.3% against Sensex's decline of 0.41%.
“Indrones is here to be a part of the digital transformation journey of its customers while leveraging indigenous software maps, geospatial software, and IoT technologies developed by MapmyIndia,” said Pravin Prajapati, founder and chief executive officer of Indrones.
As per September 2022 report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and consultancy firm EY, India’s domestic drone manufacturing industry would be worth ₹1.8 lakh crore by 2030. The report noted that drone usage in industrial operations, retail, agriculture, and defence forces would present a business opportunity of ₹98,000 crore within 2030.
