The announcement comes on the heels of the company’s involvement in Operation Sindoor
Indian UAV manufacturer Raphe mPhibr has raised USD 100m in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst, marking the country’s largest-ever fundraising in the aerospace manufacturing sector. The Noida-based startup has now secured a total of USD 145m (over Rs 1,200 crore) as it looks to expand its domestic production capabilities.
The announcement comes on the heels of the company’s involvement in Operation Sindoor, where Indian drones reportedly struck targets across the border in retaliation for a deadly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam. The mission has sparked renewed interest within India’s defence establishment in acquiring locally built unmanned aerial vehicles.
Raphe mPhibr’s chief executive, Vivek Mishra, told that building a self-reliant ecosystem for design, development and manufacturing is essential if India hopes to rival China in the drone sector. “For one of our long-endurance drones, we needed an internal combustion engine,” he said. “Anything existing in the market would be either too expensive or too heavy or would not meet performance \[parameters]. So we decided to design and manufacture the engine here.”
Mishra described the engine as India’s first indigenously designed UAV combustion engine, tailored for high performance with reduced weight and improved efficiency. “The goal was not to recreate anything, but to attune it to the requirement for the UAV and hence the user.”
He added that India had the potential to create “unique products for the unique requirements of India” by doubling down on research and in-country production. Raphe mPhibr has been building its research infrastructure for over a decade, with in-house development spanning everything from drone structures and electronics to wire harnesses and software.
Following Operation Sindoor, India’s military appetite for suicide drones and other UAVs has grown substantially. While the Indian Army recently ordered 450 drones from another firm, it is expected to place large orders with Raphe mPhibr as well.
“This was our Series B round,” Mishra said, noting the participation of returning investors including Amal Parekh and Think Investments. “We’ve been silently working for around a decade to develop the capacity where we are able to not only do research on the system level, but also on a subsystem level.”
With new funding secured and geopolitical interest in indigenous drone systems on the rise, Raphe mPhibr’s expansion could signal a pivotal moment for India’s ambitions in aerospace innovation.
