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Episode 143 · Deep tech · 28 min

Flight time is the whole product

Okulo Aerospace's bet is that what stops armies and enterprises from buying drones is endurance, not resolution. So it hybridised solar with batteries and is now designing aircraft meant to stay aloft for weeks. Forty to fifty investor conversations and a non-dilutive defence grant came before Ideaspring Capital wrote the first cheque in 2023.

Deep tech & hardwareRegulation & policyVenture capital
PG
Parithi Govindaraju
Founder, Okulo Aerospace · with Vishal Krishna
Flight time is the whole product, episode thumbnail
27:53
Said in this episode
▶ 7:21
40–50
Investors pitched before the first cheque
He spoke to roughly forty to fifty investors while Indian deep tech was still in its infancy; Ideaspring Capital was the one that took the bet.
▶ 8:40
2019 → 2023
Founding to first institutional investment
Okulo started in 2019 and was carried by grants until Ideaspring's first investment in 2023, with four years of non-dilutive capital in between.
▶ 14:12
5–6 months
Refresh rate of survey-and-mapping drone work
The ad-hoc frequency of the mapping market, which he argues is too unpredictable to scale, hence Okulo's focus on high-frequency, persistent surveillance instead.
▶ 22:06
200–300 km
Airspace he expects to be segregated by altitude
His expectation that the whole column up to 200-300 km will eventually be divided between low-altitude drones, HAPS and satellites: 'more a question of when rather than if'.
▶ 23:10
20 years
How long solar-electric drones have existed
Two decades of solar-electric drones, and very few companies have got them right: thin margins of error and a cost structure that has to work for the customer.
▶ 23:56
~1 year
His timeline to a HAPS demonstrator
He says the necessary groundwork is done and Okulo can show demonstrators in a year or so (a confidence claim made on air, not a delivered milestone).
The brief

The argument in sixty seconds

The founder's claim is that the drone industry has been solving the wrong problem. Surveying and mapping refresh the aerial picture once in five or six months, and that ad-hoc frequency is precisely why such operations cannot scale; the use cases worth building for (defence and enterprise surveillance) need data captured persistently. Endurance, then, not imagery, is the binding constraint, and after weighing fuel-electric, pure electric, pure fuel and hydrogen he settled on solar-electric hybridisation because it was mature enough to ship in a few years and already profitable, rather than profitable ten years out. The same engineering stack scales into HAPS, high-altitude craft meant to stay up for weeks and months. Running alongside is the India argument: aerospace talent that settles abroad, a small-drone supply chain that had to be imported because the sector lives inside public-sector undertakings, and a hard-tech VC base he still calls nascent. Set against that are skies empty enough that integrating drones into commercial airspace is a far smaller problem than in the US, and a defence ministry that paid for the first prototype through iDEX without taking equity. Forty to fifty investor conversations later, Ideaspring Capital backed the company in 2023. The stated endgame is to stop being a drone company at all and become an aerial data platform. What stands in the way is a stratosphere with no rulebook yet, still the air force's airspace, and Indian enterprises he says remain unwilling to pay for what Indian startups build.

Worth your time if you are

First-time deep-tech founders who can't raise on a deck
Hardware engineers choosing between battery, fuel and solar
Investors sizing India's defence-tech opening
Returnees weighing a Western career against Indian impact
Episode map

Where the conversation travels

Every block is a chapter, coloured by what it's about. Click any of it to jump straight to that minute on YouTube.

010:00–2:10 · Cold open: a schoolboy's fascination with flight022:10–4:24 · Confidence, not talent, was what India lacked034:24–7:21 · Customers first, then a grant instead of equity047:21–9:11 · Forty-odd investor conversations before a cheque059:11–11:46 · The brightest aerospace minds keep leaving0611:46–13:07 · No tier-2 suppliers to buy a drone from0713:07–14:42 · Persistence beats once-in-six-months mapping0814:42–17:12 · India as test bed, then the Gulf, then the US0917:12–19:01 · Defence adopts first, enterprise inherits1019:01–20:18 · Why solar-electric won the trade study1120:18–22:40 · HAPS, and who owns the stratosphere1222:40–24:15 · Thin margins and a demonstrator in a year1324:15–27:53 · From drone maker to aerial data platform0:005:0010:0015:0020:0025:0027:53
Deep tech & hardwareRegulation & policyVenture capitalFounder journeySales, GTM & growthProduct strategy
01Cold open: a schoolboy's fascination with flight 0:00 Naganand opens Ideaspring's Founder in Focus series and the guest defines Okulo as a deep-tech aerospace company building long-endurance drones and pseudo-satellites for persistent monitoring, a business he traces back to a sixth-standard obsession with astronomy and anything that flies. 02Confidence, not talent, was what India lacked 2:10 A PhD in aerospace engineering and a stint with one of the world's largest aerospace suppliers convinced him that development was concentrated in the US and Europe, and that his impact inside a Western giant would be marginal next to building for India's own needs. 03Customers first, then a grant instead of equity 4:24 Back in India in 2018 and started up in 2019, he found fundraising and hiring nothing like the West, spent the pre-pandemic year validating the problem with customers, and used iDEX and other non-dilutive grants to build the working prototype investors kept asking for. 04Forty-odd investor conversations before a cheque 7:21 About 40 to 50 investors heard the pitch while Indian deep tech was still in its infancy, until Ideaspring Capital, comfortable with long gestation periods and clear-eyed about the risk, led the first investment in 2023. 05The brightest aerospace minds keep leaving 9:11 He splits the challenge into talent and supply chain, and on talent argues that India's best aerospace people settle abroad, that convincing early hires to bet a career on an infant deep-tech company was the hardest sell, and that high-quality talent is still concentrated in a few pockets like Bangalore. 06No tier-2 suppliers to buy a drone from 11:46 Indian aerospace has lived inside public-sector undertakings and a few large firms, so Okulo imported components and subsystems; the government's drone push is thickening the tier-1 and tier-2 base, which he says would cut both development time and risk. 07Persistence beats once-in-six-months mapping 13:07 Survey-and-mapping flights refresh aerial data only once in five or six months, an ad-hoc frequency he argues cannot scale, so Okulo targets the use cases where data has to be acquired at high frequency, in defence and enterprise surveillance. 08India as test bed, then the Gulf, then the US 14:42 Near-empty Indian airspace makes drone integration far easier than in the US and keeps customers close enough for a hardware feedback loop, so the plan is product-market fit at home, expansion into the Middle East, and eventually North America as US defence procurement opens to foreign private players. 09Defence adopts first, enterprise inherits 17:12 Investor and founder agree that the opening of Indian defence procurement to startups is the structural change, and the dual-use strategy follows the American pattern in which defence is the first adopter of radical innovation before it reaches commercial use. 10Why solar-electric won the trade study 19:01 Customers told him flight time was what blocked adoption, so he compared fuel-electric, pure electric, pure fuel and hydrogen before picking solar-electric hybridisation as the option mature enough to build now and profitable now rather than in ten years. 11HAPS, and who owns the stratosphere 20:18 The same engineering stack scales into high-altitude craft that stay aloft for weeks and months, offering rapidly deployable, lower-cost alternatives to satellites, except that the airspace belongs to each country's air force and the regulatory framework is still being drafted by committee. 12Thin margins and a demonstrator in a year 22:40 Solar-electric drones have existed for twenty years and very few companies have got them right; he argues capital will follow the business outcome, and that the real work is industrialising the product at a cost the customer will pay, with demonstrators promised in about a year. 13From drone maker to aerial data platform 24:15 The three-to-five-year vision is to stop being a hardware company and become the premier aerial data acquisition provider, blocked less by money than by a nascent hard-tech VC base, missing HAPS regulation, and Indian enterprises he says are unwilling to pay for what Indian startups build.
Timeline

The arc, briefly

A return to India, four years on grant money, and the cheque that finally came.

2010Solar-electric drones enter his field of view. He starts following a technology that is already two decades old and that, by his count, very few companies have ever turned into a shipping product.
2018He comes back to India. A PhD in aerospace and a stint at one of the world's largest aerospace suppliers had convinced him development was concentrated in the US and Europe, and that his own impact inside a Western giant would be marginal. His line: India was never short of brain power, only of confidence.
2019Okulo Aerospace starts. The premise is that flight time, not imagery, is what stops defence and enterprise buyers adopting drones at all.
2019-20The first year goes on customers, not aircraft. He spends the months up to the pandemic validating the problem, and investors tell him plainly that they want evidence the technology works before they will read a deck.
2023Ideaspring Capital writes the first cheque. Forty to fifty investors heard the pitch before that. What converted it was a working prototype, a long-endurance drone for the Indian Army built on iDEX money, one of the earliest awards under the defence ministry scheme and taken without diluting equity.
TodayThe stratosphere has no rulebook. HAPS airspace belongs to each country's air force and committees are still drafting a framework; he expects the whole column up to 200 to 300 km to end up segregated by vehicle class. He says Okulo can show demonstrators in about a year.
2030India is tipped to be the largest drone hub by the end of the decade. Government push is thickening the tier-1 and tier-2 supplier base that Okulo had to import around, and the three-to-five-year plan is to stop being a drone company at all and sell aerial data, with the hardware parked wherever the data is. His unresolved complaint: Indian enterprises still will not pay for what Indian startups build.
Takeaways

Ideas to carry out of this hour

01

Endurance, not imagery, is what blocks drone adoption

The decision that defines Okulo came out of customer interviews rather than a lab: buyers kept saying flight time was the limitation preventing them from adopting drone solutions. He worked through the alternatives (fuel-electric, pure electric, pure fuel, even hydrogen-based aviation) and chose solar-electric hybridisation because it sat at the sweet spot where the technology was mature enough to implement in a few years and the economics already worked. His rule against research-project risk is explicit: he did not want to build a technology that might be profitable ten years from now.

▶ 19:16▶ 19:30▶ 19:47
02

The company intends to stop being a drone company

Surveying and mapping refresh aerial data once in five or six months, and he argues that ad-hoc frequency is exactly why those operations cannot scale. Okulo instead sells persistence: high-frequency aerial data for defence and enterprise surveillance. The three-to-five-year vision is to be the premier aerial data acquisition provider, where the hardware simply happens to be wherever people need data. What is being sold is the decision the data enables, not the aircraft.

▶ 14:27▶ 24:28▶ 24:53
03

A grant-funded prototype did what a pitch deck couldn't

Investors told him they needed evidence that the technology worked, and Indian grant schemes turned out to hold significant money for prototype development without equity dilution. Okulo was among the earliest recipients of iDEX, the defence ministry's innovation scheme, and used it plus other grants to build a long-endurance drone for the Indian Army. Only with that prototype in hand did the 40-to-50-investor slog convert, and Ideaspring Capital's first cheque landed in 2023.

▶ 6:35▶ 6:51▶ 7:21
04

Defence is the early adopter; Indian enterprise is the holdout

His reading of American innovation history is that defence adopts radical technology first (rockets, AR and VR) and commercial use follows, and he believes India has now understood this through iDEX and reformed acquisition procedures. Hence the dual-use strategy: build once, deploy with defence as the early adopter, then transition the technology into enterprise. The sharper complaint sits on the far side of that transition. Indian enterprises will not take the risk or pay, which is why he says capable startups end up looking West.

▶ 17:44▶ 18:17▶ 25:51
05

The missing ecosystem is really two: people and suppliers

He splits the technical challenge in half. On talent, India's brightest aerospace minds tend to settle abroad, early hires had to be talked into betting a career on an infant deep-tech company, and the concentration of high-quality people is still limited to pockets like Bangalore. On supply, aerospace in India has lived inside public-sector undertakings and a few large firms, so small-drone components and subsystems were imported; a real tier-1 and tier-2 base, he says, would cut development timescales and risk substantially.

▶ 9:42▶ 10:11▶ 11:46
06

India's empty skies are a genuine competitive advantage

Against mature economies like the US, India has very few commercial aircraft and no general-aviation ecosystem, so integrating drone airspace into commercial airspace is not the obstacle it is elsewhere. Hardware also needs the customer nearby for the deploy-and-feedback loop, which makes India the natural test bed before the Middle East and then North America. Higher up, the rules do not exist at all: HAPS airspace sits with each country's air force, committees are still drafting a framework, and he expects everything up to 200-300 km to be segregated by vehicle class eventually: a question of when, not if.

▶ 14:58▶ 15:15▶ 22:06
07

Twenty years of solar-electric drones, almost no products

Solar-electric flight is not new. He was tracking it from around 2010 and the field is two decades old, yet very few companies have made it work, because the margins of error are thin and the engineering has to land at a cost structure the customer will actually pay. He is relaxed about capital: if the business outcome is there, investors warm up. What he flags instead is the distance between a working aircraft and an industrially engineered product, and regulation catching up with it, with HAPS demonstrators promised in about a year.

▶ 23:10▶ 23:25▶ 23:44
The numbers, drawn

What the episode measures

Every figure below was said on air, with timestamps included and caveats kept.

Deep tech runs on a different clock

years
Age of solar drones20Okulo, first cheque4HAPS demonstrator1
All three figures as stated on air: solar-electric drones have existed for about twenty years with very few companies getting them right; Okulo started in 2019 and took Ideaspring's first cheque in 2023; the founder says a HAPS demonstrator is roughly a year away. Three different kinds of clock, plotted on one axis.▶ 23:10

Why solar-electric won the trade study

the propulsion options he says he weighed, and the one he took
Weighed and set aside Fuel-electric Pure electric Pure fuel Hydrogen-based aviation Solar-electric hybridisation Chosen Two tests: mature enough to ship in a few years, and already profitable, not a decade out.
Customers had told him flight time was the limitation, so endurance set the terms of the comparison. What he wanted was not the best physics but the option he could implement in a few years at economics that already worked.▶ 19:16

The two ecosystems India still doesn't have

how he splits the technical challenge
Talent Supply chain The best minds settle abroad Aerospace sat in PSUs and a few large firms Early hires had to bet a career on an infant firm Components, subsystems were imported Quality clusters in a few pockets like Bangalore A tier-1 and tier-2 base would cut time and risk
His own division of the problem. Convincing the first engineers to bet a career on an infant deep-tech company was, he says, the hardest sell of the two.▶ 9:42

The column of sky nobody has divided yet

altitude, and who is allowed in it
Up to 200–300 km, still one undivided column Satellites what HAPS undercuts on cost HAPS aloft for weeks and months Low-altitude drones the layer flying today Stratosphere belongs to each country's air force, and a committee is still drafting the framework.
He expects the whole column to end up segregated by vehicle class, which he puts as more a question of when rather than if. Until then HAPS sit in airspace that has no rulebook and no civil owner.▶ 22:06
Worth keeping

Lines that stay

India was not lacking the talent — we had the brain power. What was missing was the confidence to build great things out of the country.

— Parithi Govindaraju ▶ 2:42

We didn't want to work on a technology that might be profitable ten years from now. We wanted to monetise it as soon as possible.

— Parithi Govindaraju ▶ 19:47

People know us as a drone company making hardware today, but we will transition into a data acquisition platform — the hardware happens to be wherever people need data.

— Parithi Govindaraju ▶ 24:28

There are a lot of startups who can really add value, but they are looking at the West, because the Indian enterprise sector is not willing to pay for it.

— Parithi Govindaraju ▶ 25:51

You need luck in startups. One thing you absolutely need is luck.

— Naganand Doraswamy ▶ 15:47
Clips that travel

Short on time? Start here

First-time deep-tech founders who can't raise on a deck

Grants before equity, and forty-odd conversations

The most transferable stretch: validate with customers, take non-dilutive iDEX money to build the prototype, and only then survive 40-50 investor meetings.

6:04 → 9:11 · 3 min ▶ Watch clip
Hardware operators fighting an import bill

The two ecosystems India still doesn't have

Why aerospace talent leaves, why early hires are the hardest sell, and why small-drone components had to come from abroad.

9:11 → 13:07 · 4 min ▶ Watch clip
Founders picking a first market for hardware

Persistent data, and India as the test bed

The use-case definition that rules out mapping, plus the empty-airspace advantage and the India-Gulf-US expansion ladder.

13:50 → 17:12 · 3 min ▶ Watch clip
Engineers choosing between battery, fuel and hydrogen

Solar, batteries, and the road to HAPS

The full trade study in one stretch, then the leap to craft that stay up for months, and the airspace nobody has written rules for.

19:01 → 22:40 · 4 min ▶ Watch clip
Investors sizing India's deep-tech market

The vision, and the customer who won't pay

The transition from drone maker to data platform, and a blunt account of what a nascent hard-tech VC base and risk-averse Indian enterprises cost a founder.

24:15 → 27:53 · 4 min ▶ Watch clip
Glossary

The jargon, unpacked

HAPS
High-altitude pseudo-satellite: a solar-powered aircraft designed to loiter in the stratosphere for weeks or months, doing communications and surveillance work that would otherwise need a satellite; rendered on air as 'high-altitude solar satellite'.
iDEX
Innovations for Defence Excellence, the Indian defence ministry's scheme that funds startup prototypes with grants rather than equity; Okulo was among its earliest recipients, for a long-endurance drone for the Indian Army.
Long-endurance drone
An unmanned aircraft built to stay airborne far longer than a battery-only multirotor, the flight-time constraint the founder says is what actually blocks enterprise and defence adoption.
Solar-electric hybridisation
Powering an aircraft from photovoltaic cells alongside batteries so daylight extends flight time; the option Okulo chose over fuel-electric, pure electric, pure fuel and hydrogen.
Persistent aerial data acquisition
Capturing aerial data at high frequency so decisions and anomaly detection can happen continuously, as opposed to an ad-hoc survey flight once in five or six months.
Dual-use technology
A technology built to serve both defence and commercial customers. Okulo's strategy is to let defence be the early adopter and then transition the same stack into enterprise.
Tier-1 / tier-2 suppliers
The layered vendor base that feeds an aerospace manufacturer with components and subsystems; largely absent for small drones in India, which forced Okulo to import.
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