ideaForge Wins ₹151 Crore RDI Grant for 'YETI', a Heavy-Lift Drone for Himalayan Military Logistics

A ₹151-crore push for high-altitude logistics

India's Technology Development Board (TDB) has granted in-principle approval for ₹151 crore in financial assistance to ideaForge Technology to build YETI, a heavy-lift drone designed to resupply troops in some of the world's most hostile terrain. The money comes from the government's new Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) scheme, and the sanction is being described as one of the first disbursements from the ₹1 lakh crore corpus the Union Cabinet approved to pull private capital into deep tech.

ideaForge, one of India's largest drone makers by volume and a supplier to the country's armed forces and paramilitary units, will put the grant toward a programme whose total cost is pegged at roughly ₹302 crore. The RDI backing therefore covers close to half of the project, with the company funding the balance — a cost-sharing structure meant to de-risk expensive hardware research without the state building it in-house.

What YETI is built to do

YETI is a hybrid platform: a fixed-wing aircraft that can take off and land vertically, removing the need for runways in places where none exist. According to details shared by the company and carried across defence trade press, the drone is engineered to fly up to 200 kilometres carrying payloads of up to 200 kilograms.

The target environment is unforgiving. The platform is designed to operate autonomously from Himalayan posts at altitudes between 4,000 and 6,000 metres, as well as in deserts, forests and offshore zones. At those heights thin air robs rotors of lift and batteries of range, and weather can close roads and helipads for days at a stretch. Forward positions along India's northern borders have historically been resupplied by porters, pack animals and manned helicopters — all of them slow, costly or dangerous. A drone that can shuttle 200 kilograms across 200 kilometres of ridgeline would materially change that equation.

Why the funding model matters

The RDI scheme marks a deliberate shift in how India bankrolls frontier technology. Rather than the government developing capability internally, the ₹1 lakh crore fund is designed to de-risk private research in sectors such as AI, robotics, space and advanced manufacturing by offering long-tenor, low-cost capital. The ideaForge sanction is an early and visible test of that approach, and its size — ₹151 crore for a single hardware programme — signals that the fund is prepared to write cheques large enough to matter for capital-intensive engineering.

For ideaForge, a listed company whose business has so far centred on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones, YETI is a step into a different category. Logistics UAVs are judged less on their cameras than on endurance, payload and the ability to fly themselves reliably in bad weather — a harder engineering problem, but one with obvious military and civilian pull.

A bet on indigenous hardware

The award fits a broader pattern in which New Delhi is trying to convert India's large pool of drone software and assembly talent into domestically owned platforms, reducing reliance on imported systems for sensitive frontier roles. If YETI reaches the field on schedule, it would give Indian forces a home-grown answer to a problem — sustaining troops in the high Himalayas — that has strained militaries for as long as those borders have been contested.

The grant remains an in-principle approval, and the programme still has to prove itself in flight testing before any drone reaches a mountain post. But as a signal of intent — both about where India wants its drone industry to go and about how the RDI fund will be spent — it is a substantial one.

Sources

• ideaForge gets Rs 151 crore Govt funding to develop 'Yeti' drone for high-altitude military logistics — The Tribune
• ideaForge Gets ₹151 Crore RDI Boost for YETI Platform — SMEStreet
• ideaForge Receives TDB Nod for Financial Assistance of ₹151 Crore Under RDI Scheme — Raksha Anirveda