Droneacharya Aerial Innovations shares hit 10% upper circuit, stock surges 70% since listing

DroneAcharya is engaged in enterprise drone solutions for mining, agriculture, oil and gas, powerlines, highways, shipping, and urban and rural planning.

The company is a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) authorized Remote Pilot Training Organisation (RPTO) offering training in drone construction, aerial cinematography, data processing, Python for GIS, drones in agriculture, drones for disaster management, and lastly droneracing.

The initial public offering (IPO) of Droneacharya Aerial Innovations was launched last month on Tuesday, December 13, 2022 and concluded on Thursday, December 15, 2022. Droneacharya Aerial Innovations Limited offers end-to-end customized drone ecosystem solutions to a range of businesses.

The SME issue witnessed strong subscription as the issue was booked 243.70 times with retail category overbooked 330.82 times, qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) 46.21 times, and non institutional investors (NIIs) 287.80 times. The shares of the company got listed on the BSE SME Exchange.

The company offerered 62.90 lakh shares ( ₹10/- paid up) through the book-building process in the price band of ₹52-54 per share. Marquee investors led by Shankar Sharma and others picked up stake in the company in the pre-IPO funding. The company had said that the fresh funds raised will be utilised to purchase and manufacture drones, sensors and processing infrastructure.

It aspires to start producing drones that are 100% indigenous and customized. Further, the company plans to open 12 new training centres by March 2023. For the year ended 31st March 2022, the company reported a revenue of ₹358.73 lakh and net profit of ₹40.65 lakh.

It is seeking to boost its operating revenues by 300% within three years by training 25,000 drone pilots each year and the long-term plan is to raise the topline to ₹1,000 crore by 2026-27, according to founder and managing director Prateek Srivastava.