India’s Drone Darling Snags $100M to Play Catch-Up While Pretending It’s Not Copying China

Indian drone startup Raphe mPhibr has raised $100 million in Series B funding led by General Catalyst to supercharge its R&D and manufacturing footprint.

The all-equity round pushes the company’s total funding to $145 million and comes as India scrambles to pour money into drones following its tit-for-tat aerial tech war with Pakistan.

Noida-based Raphe mPhibr aims to reduce reliance on Chinese drones while cashing in on New Delhi’s $470 million defense drone shopping spree over the next year.

Founded in 2017 by Vikash and Vivek Mishra, the startup builds everything from compact surveillance UAVs to heavy payload drones for high-altitude logistics.

The company’s clients include the Indian Army, Navy, Air Force, and multiple armed police units, which basically means it prints drones for government agencies only.

Raphe claims to make nearly all parts in-house—including autopilots, frames, and batteries—while still importing fancy stuff like radars and cameras it swears it’ll make locally someday.

With its shiny new 650,000-square-foot factory, the company says it’s done playing with toy labs and is now aiming for serious production scale.

Despite research being “hard” and “expensive” in India, the startup’s obsession with full control over tech and manufacturing has helped it avoid Chinese components and sleep better at night.

In its quest for global relevance, Raphe has flirted with European defense giants like Hensoldt, Safran, and Dassault Systèmes for sensors and software.

The startup is now eyeing exports after making an appearance at defense expos in Dubai and Paris and securing a few hush-hush international licenses.

Raphe has sold over 300 drones in the past year, boasts four years of profitability, and claims 4x revenue growth without offering actual numbers.

It currently employs 600 people, half of whom are busy either thinking up or building flying robots that might soon end up on someone else’s border.