ZeroDrag raises ₹6.5 crore Seed from Transition VC to scale drone electronics manufacturing
What's the deal? ZeroDrag Technologies, a Nagpur-based drone electronics startup, has raised ₹6.5 crore from Transition VCDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The company will use the capital to expand manufacturing capacity, strengthen its supply chain, accelerate R&D, and scale production of avionics systems for drone makers in India and abroad.
Founded by Amit Nimje and Shantanu Bhede, ZeroDrag builds the electronics layer that powers drones — autopilots, motor controllers, communication systems, telemetry infrastructure, and positioning modules. Rather than making drones itself, it supplies core sub-systems to OEMs across defence, agriculture, logistics, and industrial applications.
"We decided enabling more drone companies at the supply chain level would be the best bet to disrupt the whole drone industry at a larger scale," co-founder Bhede said.
Why now? India's drone sector has seen growing policy and investor attention around indigenising critical technologies and reducing reliance on Chinese electronics. ZeroDrag is already exporting to the US and Europe, where drone makers are actively diversifying supply chains away from China.
The company claims its pricing beats Chinese suppliers even at bulk level, thanks to standardised components and supply chain efficiencies built in from the start. It currently manufactures 500 to 1,000 units a month but says demand has consistently outpaced supply.
"We had to say no to a lot of our customers because we knew we weren't going to be able to fulfil that order on time," Bhede said.
What could go wrong? ZeroDrag faces intense global competition, particularly from Chinese manufacturers that move faster on product development. Bhede acknowledged the challenge directly: "We are constantly in competition with Chinese manufacturers who are much faster than us."
The startup also needs to reduce its dependence on a limited set of vendors — a vulnerability it plans to address by building a wider parallel supply network with the new funding.
The signal: The drone electronics supply chain is emerging as a strategic battleground. Shoeb Ali, co-founder and managing partner at Transition VC, estimated the opportunity from defence and surveillance demand for Indian-made sub-components at $3–6B by 2032.
ZeroDrag is betting that intelligent onboard systems will define the next phase of drone development. "Whoever cracks edge compute at scale is going to be the Nvidia of drones," Bhede said, referring to AI-powered decision-making in GPS-denied environments.
Over the next 12 to 24 months, the startup plans to expand into enterprise-grade hardware for heavy-lift drones and future eVTOL platforms. It was previously backed by Japanese investors through Enrission India CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and has received support through government initiatives including Startup India.
Read more: ETEntrepreneur (The Economic Times)
