In the frozen frontiers of Ladakh and the disaster-struck hills of Uttarakhand, drones are now becoming a vital part of India’s logistical and surveillance backbone. But the drones flying these complex missions aren’t imported or assembled from kits. They are built by an end-to-end deeptech company founded in 2018.
Noida-based EndureAir is the brainchild of three co-founders: Dr Abhishek (Director), an aerospace engineering professor at IIT Kanpur; Rama Krishna (CEO), an IIT Kanpur graduate with a dual degree (BTech-MTech) in aerospace engineering; and Chirag Jain (CTO), a mechanical engineering graduate from IIT Patna, who later pursued his master’s at IIT Kanpur.
What began as an academic exploration of helicopter-style drone systems soon turned into a mission-driven company. Today, EndureAir builds both drone hardware, such as specialised airframes and propulsion systems, and software, including autopilots and AI-powered computer vision modules.
“Most drone companies today are assemblers,” says Jain. “But for defence, that doesn’t work. You need reliable, certified, and deeply integrated systems. We build everything in-house.”
A beginning without a problem statement
Back in 2018, drones were still a nascent sector in India. When EndureAir was formed, the team didn’t have a specific commercial problem to solve.
“We had deep technologies built during our time at IIT Kanpur, but the ecosystem wasn’t ready to absorb them,” Jain recalls. Larger companies weren’t willing to invest in technologies that weren’t fully developed and productised.
Rather than taking the easier route of supplying components, the founders set out to build complete drone systems from the ground up. Their early efforts focused on live demonstrations for the Indian Armed Forces. Within a year-and-a-half, two clear problem areas emerged: moving supplies across high-altitude terrain and conducting long-range surveillance missions, both critical for defence operations.
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EndureAir’s product portfolio now includes three core drone series:
Vibram: A single-rotor surveillance drone for long-range missions. Originally developed at IIT Kanpur in 2013-14, Vibram is now in its sixth iteration. It can fly up to 50 km and stream real-time surveillance. Both petrol and electric versions are available, with use cases spanning defence and civilian sectors. In 2021, Vibram delivered vaccines over 42 km during the Medicine from the Sky programme in the Vikarabad district of Telangana.
Sabal: A logistics-focused drone family designed for high-altitude payload delivery. Sabal 10 and 20 can carry loads from 10 kg to 20 kg over rugged terrain above 5,000 metres. Sabal 20 was supplied to the Eastern Army Command.
Alakh: A nano-drone series built for search-and-rescue and close-range surveillance. Alakh drones were deployed by the National Disaster Response Force during the 2020 Chamoli cloudburst, in Turkey during the earthquake response, and again at the Silkyara tunnel rescue site. It comes with variants for AGI (Automated Ground Inspection), swarm deployments, and payload delivery.
A different approach to drone engineering
Jain emphasises a major differentiator: while many drone companies use multi-rotor designs, EndureAir relies on helicopter-inspired single-rotor systems. “Multi-rotor drones can’t scale beyond a point. Physics limits them. We’ve taken proven helicopter principles and miniaturised them for unmanned use,” he says.
Engineering and manufacturing happen in-house in Noida. Around 150 people work at the company; 110 are involved in engineering and manufacturing, including a 60-70-member team covering software, electronics, and design.
Deeptech meets AI at the core
EndureAir’s tech stack integrates AI for real-time object recognition, activity monitoring, and change detection. The company trains custom machine learning models for specific drone applications. Large language models (LLMs) are used internally to speed up development cycles.
“AI isn’t just a buzzword for us. It’s embedded in our products and development processes,” says Jain. “We go deep into every layer, whether hardware, software or electronics.”
EndureAir operates largely on a B2G model. The company sells drone units to Indian defence forces through tenders, with quantities ranging from tens to hundreds. Clients include the Eastern, Northern, Southwestern, and Central Army Commands.
Ensure Air also works with B2B clients. Delhivery, its first B2B customer, commissioned a high-speed drone for delivering 5 kg payloads over 40 km. Other customers include BEL and the Adani group. In these cases, EndureAir either sells the drones or offers a drone-as-a-service model.
Pricing depends on use case and capability, typically ranging between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 80 lakh. Due to full in-house production, the company claims a cost advantage in both standard and premium offerings.
EndureAir raised Rs 13.6 crore in seed funding from the family office of Jalaj Dani (Co-promoter of Asian Paints) and the co-founders of Addverb Technologies. The company is now closing a new funding round with additional investors.
India’s drone sector has grown quickly, especially after the pandemic. But in niche areas like high-altitude logistics, Jain says there are very few players. In the broader defence drone space, he points to companies such as IdeaForge, NewSpace Research, and RRP S4E as some of EndureAir’s key competitors.
Jain says there are persistent challenges in deep tech hardware. “Capital is always a bottleneck. You can’t iterate on hardware like software, and deeptech requires patient capital.” He also says that defence requirements evolve constantly, requiring fast turnarounds and highly adaptive engineering teams.
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What’s next?
Looking ahead, the company is gearing up to launch Sabal 50, targeting defence and civilian use cases, including strategic payload transport. A 200-kg cargo drone is also in the pipeline, which would open the doors to unmanned air mobility and air taxi applications in the long term.
“Eventually, we want to build flying systems that are born and built for India’s complex terrain and real-world needs,” says Jain. Until then, the team will continue to test, iterate, and fly forward, one rotor at a time.
Edited by Swetha Kannan
