Hyderabad: Born in a hostel room at Hyderabad’s BITS Pilani campus, Apollyon Dynamics — a startup that stunned India’s defence circles by building and supplying cutting-edge UAVs to the Indian Army within two months of its launch in 2025 — has added another feather to its hat.Now, the 20-member team has secured Rs 4 crore in a pre-seed funding round from Hyderabad-based spacetech startups — Skyroot Aerospace, Dhruva Space, and Agnikul Cosmos. The round was led by Naandi Ventures, placing the company at a valuation of Rs 25 crore.A considerable share of the newly raised capital will be channelled into research and development, along with strengthening infrastructure, said its 21-year-old co-founders Jayant Khatari and Sourya Choudhury. “At this stage, our mantra is simple—build fast, iterate faster, and deliver,” said Khatari. He added that most of the capital would go into making the systems faster, more reliable, and deployable in real-world scenarios. “We will also continue hiring strong, passionate engineers who want to build, not just work. We are setting up our own capabilities for testing, iteration and manufacturing so that we are not dependent on external players and can move fast,” he said.According to Jayant, support from spacetech firms is a huge achievement as it affirms that these founders, who have already made their mark in spacetech, also believe in Apollyon’s vision.Founded in May 2025 by two BTech students (mechanical and electrical engineering) inside their hostel room at the city campus, Apollyon got its first big break in July 2025 when the Indian Army approached them to build kamikaze drones capable of speeds exceeding 300 kmph—nearly five times faster than standard commercial UAVs—and designed to deliver 1-kg payloads with precision.This gave the firm the impetus to grow from a two-member team, along with six interns, to a 20-member firm. Now, it has even set up an office on the BITS campus along with two manufacturing units within a 10-km radius of the premises. It has also built a mobile drone lab capable of producing more than 100 first-person-view drones per month for the Indian Army, aimed at precision surveillance.“The entry of leading spacetech founders gives us a strong push not just in terms of funding, but also in terms of the ecosystem that they bring,” said Choudhury, adding that these investments can open new doors for them as they are now part of the right circles where conversations, collaborations, and opportunities happen at a different level. “At this stage, that leverage matters as much as the money,” he added.
