HYDERABAD: Hyderabad-based Marut Dronetech, a drone technology company with DGCA certification for manufacturing and training, raised $6.2 million (about Rs 52 crore) in Series A funding from Lok Capital.
Marut is building an ecosystem to promote drone adoption across various sectors in India. Marut plans to allocate funds towards development of advanced agricultural drones, expanding channel partner network and service centres into Tier 2-3 cities, and establishing drone agriculture service hubs to offer drone-as-a-service.
It aims to foster drone entrepreneurship, launch 17 drone academies, and enhance its research and development efforts.

“The fresh capital will allow us to make investments in building our team, increasing our manufacturing capacity to 3,000 drones per annum, and marketing,” said Prem Kumar Vislawath, chief executive officer and co-founder, Marut.

Drones in agriculture can secure the health of crops, save water, preserve soil health, avoid exposure to chemicals, increase yield, and provide income to village-level entrepreneurs, said Hari Krishnan, director of Lok Capital.

Marut is exploring disaster management and surveillance applications. It has grown to over 200 members and has a fleet of 750 drones and over 1,000 drone pilots across 14 states.