Discover the Indian deep-tech that's becoming a silent partner for the world's most elite forces. Meet Arvind Lakshmikumar, the engineer often compared to India’s Tony Stark. His company, Tonbo Imaging, builds cutting-edge night vision, thermal imaging, and defence-tech systems used by the Indian Army, NATO forces, and even US Special Operations teams.
In this episode of Mic’d Up With India’s Defencepreneurs, Arvind tells Asianet News’ Adith Charlie about how Indian innovation is shaping the future of combat.
🔍 In this interview, you will learn:
* How Tonbo’s tech supported Indian forces during Operation Sindoor and the Uri Surgical Strikes.
* Why global militaries are relying on an Indian startup for battlefield-tested optics.
* The inside story on their new project: a next-gen system designed to stop drone swarms.
* What it takes to build military hardware that performs in zero-visibility combat.
This is the story of the Indian deep-tech that’s actively shaping modern warfare.
#OperationSindoor #Sindoor2.0 #TonboImaging #DefenceTech #IndianArmy #ThermalImaging #NATO #SpecialForces #AdithCharlie #MilitaryTech #DeepTech #IndianInnovation #india
In this episode of Mic’d Up With India’s Defencepreneurs, Arvind tells Asianet News’ Adith Charlie about how Indian innovation is shaping the future of combat.
🔍 In this interview, you will learn:
* How Tonbo’s tech supported Indian forces during Operation Sindoor and the Uri Surgical Strikes.
* Why global militaries are relying on an Indian startup for battlefield-tested optics.
* The inside story on their new project: a next-gen system designed to stop drone swarms.
* What it takes to build military hardware that performs in zero-visibility combat.
This is the story of the Indian deep-tech that’s actively shaping modern warfare.
#OperationSindoor #Sindoor2.0 #TonboImaging #DefenceTech #IndianArmy #ThermalImaging #NATO #SpecialForces #AdithCharlie #MilitaryTech #DeepTech #IndianInnovation #india
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NewsTranscript
00:00Your journey has been super fascinating, but along the way, you also got this moniker of being India's Tony Stark or India's Iron Man attached. How did that happen?
00:10Tonbo does that, right? They build, you know, fascinating new technology, technology which does not exist in the world today and technology which can potentially be a game changer for modern warfare, right?
00:20So we built a lot of different tinkering toys, right? We built a variety of systems at that stage. The fusion system was one of them.
00:26I found it gratifying at that time because you're pretty stoked to be called Tony Stark, right?
00:30Then I started finding it very amusing. Gets a lot of social capital with my kids.
00:34The night vision systems in terms of night enablement of the soldiers who went into Uri, a lot of the equipment came from Tonbo.
00:40In Sindhur, we built systems which essentially were used on the air defense guns.
00:45These were night enablements of the Zoo-23 guns which essentially were used to shoot down drones.
00:50So the night vision systems which went in, the thermal imaging systems and the target tracking systems on the Zoo-23 were ours.
00:56If you have a hundred drones, a thousand drones coming at you and you need to be able to disable them, how do you disable them simultaneously?
01:02So we are building this high-power microwave system which essentially can simultaneously disable, you know, a hundred drones which are coming and essentially fry their electronics.
01:10So it shoots, you know, a microwave. So this is called Wave Strike.
01:26Hello, everyone. Welcome to Meet India's Defense Preneurs.
01:29I'm your host, Adit Charlie.
01:31And I bring you up close and personal with the men and women making Atmanirbar Bharat a reality in India's defense sector.
01:38Today, I'm joined by Arvind Lakshmikumar, CEO and founder of Tonbo Imaging.
01:43Arvind, thank you so much for joining in.
01:45Thank you, Adit. Pleasure to be here.
01:46Arvind, I want to take you to the very beginning of your entrepreneurship journey or even slightly before that.
01:52You did your master's from Bitspilani, went to the U.S., enrolled for Ph.D., didn't complete Ph.D., but came back to India, started something exciting and then got into defense entrepreneurship.
02:06Walk us through that journey.
02:08And I'm also curious to know why you chose to come back to India and not continue being based in the U.S.
02:14So, you know, when you started a Ph.D. because you didn't know what you're doing at that stage, right?
02:19You said, you know, this is something where I was always interested in research and computer vision and robotics.
02:24And the natural course was to go see what kind of, you know, advanced research can be done.
02:28But I realized I'm really not cut out to do seven, eight years of Ph.D.
02:32And my doctoral advisor, Professor Takiyo Kanade, who's one of the foremost experts in robotics and computer vision.
02:38He still serves on our advisory board after so many years.
02:40And, but, you know, said it made sense to do some research, but I thought, you know, I think being an entrepreneur or building something in the industry was far more, you know, attractive to me as a calling as opposed to being an academician.
02:55So, you know, when we decided at that point, I dropped out of the Ph.D. program and, you know, I went to work for a company where we was working with the U.S. Department of Defense, building fundamental technologies as part of their future modernization programs.
03:08So this is part of the future combat systems programs in the U.S., which is essentially a Boeing-led program.
03:14The U.S. is not a place which we really felt that we fit in very well.
03:17And it is more from a personal point of view.
03:20So my wife and I, we decided we'll, you know, we'd move back to India because, you know, it's a place where we were born, we grew up.
03:25And, you know, we could, we identified with our surroundings a lot more than what we did in the U.S.
03:31And that's when we came back to India.
03:33And when I came back to India, I, you know, I started working with this company called Sarnav Corporation,
03:38which is the former Stanford Research.
03:39And most of the fundamental innovations in the world in consumer electronics actually came from Sarnav.
03:46Actually, your LCD panel, your CMOS imager, all of them were invented at Sarnav.
03:51Sarnav is a fantastic research place.
03:53It was like, it's like the Xerox PARC Palo Alto Research Center, where it built a lot of technologies, very good at it,
04:00but did not know how to commercialize it.
04:02So we set up a center in India and I used to run the engineering center here in India.
04:06And around 2008, 2009, they figured that they didn't know what they were doing in India.
04:11And they said they wanted to exit India.
04:13And we thought, look, if you're exiting India, here's an opportunity for us to take something which is already moving and build on it.
04:19So we did a management buyout, which essentially is to just restructure the existing company and created what is Tombow Imaging today.
04:25So if I take a step back in terms of, you know, why we started, right, what we started.
04:29Our core expertise was in defense and automotive as an application.
04:35So we had worked on the, you know, DARPA VSAM program.
04:39I had worked on combat zones at sea and we had future combat systems programs in defense.
04:44And we worked on the DARPA Grand Challenge, which is for autonomous vehicles,
04:48and worked with automotive companies to build technologies for autonomous systems.
04:52So we understood as an application space, we understood automotive and we understood defense and military quite well, right, as an application.
05:01From a technology point of view, we understood computer vision, robotics, imaging.
05:05So these are the core technologies that we understood.
05:07So we said whatever we were starting has to either, it has to build on what your core capabilities are.
05:13So our core capabilities is imaging and robotics.
05:15So let's build on that, right.
05:16And from an application point, we chose defense over automotive largely because, you know, any business that you are in, you need to be close to the customer.
05:26If we were in Silicon Valley, we would have chosen automotive because, I mean, and this is 15 years back.
05:31Today, we would have chosen defense still.
05:33Because there, you know, you're building fundamental technologies in radar, LIDAR, everything, which goes into autonomous cars.
05:39Building that in India and hoping that, you know, you're going to get these technologies inserted into a Mahindra or a Tata is difficult because India does not need autonomous cars or at least it's, it's not really feasible to have autonomous vehicles here, right.
05:51Right.
05:51So, but defense, on the other hand, we found it more interesting because India has always imported fundamental defense equipment from elsewhere, right.
05:58Right.
05:59And India had a lot of great systems integrators, people who essentially got the technology from outside and built, you know, the end system in the product.
06:06But we did not have any OEMs or original equipment manufacturers, right.
06:10And we said that is a gap that is missing here, right.
06:14We said we don't have original equipment manufacturers like a Boeing or an Elbit or, you know, a BAE Systems or a SageM.
06:22But we have only integrators.
06:24So, we said if India really needs to have sovereign capabilities, building that core technology stack is very important.
06:30So, we said let's build and become an OEM from India where we'll build it in India.
06:35But our goal is really build it in a form where it's suitable to be sold to most parts of the world.
06:40So, that's how we started off with defense and that's, that's why we, that's how we began.
06:43Your journey has been super fascinating.
06:45But along the way, you also got this moniker of being India's Tony Stark or India's Iron Man attached.
06:53How did that happen?
06:54So, I'll tell you what happens and I'll tell you what's the, what are the downsides to that as well, right.
07:00So, many years back, so one of the people who, you know, worked with me, it was a general, a US general who was stationed with NATO.
07:11And he was asked by, I mean, so, Hindu was doing some article on Indian companies and then they had reached out and they found somehow that it worked and they had interviewed him.
07:22And he had said, you know, Arvind's like Tony Stark, right.
07:26And Iron Man, I find this, I mean, it's a mixture of three things, right.
07:30And the reason he said, you know, it's like Tony Stark is because he said, just like Tony Stark and Iron Man essentially tinkered and built a lot of fundamental cool technology, right.
07:41Tonbo does that, right.
07:42They built, you know, fascinating new technology, technology which does not exist in the world today and technology which can potentially be a game changer for modern warfare, right.
07:51So, we built a lot of different tinkering toys, right.
07:53We built a variety of systems at that stage.
07:55The fusion system was one of them, but we built a lot more, you know, interesting systems.
07:59You know, the point at that point and the thing is that this is in over the last, you know, 10, 15 years, I mean, ever since that happened in 20, whatever, 12, what, 20, 2015, around 20, 12, 2015, right.
08:10You know, I found it gratifying at that time because you're pretty stoked to be called Tony Stark, right.
08:14Because it sounds, you know, really, you know, really nice and it seems like a great validation of someone who's a respected NATO general seeing that, thinking that, you know, you're building stuff which is really cool.
08:28And doing that analogy was pretty gratifying.
08:32Then I started finding it very amusing because it got me a lot of social capital, right.
08:36It's also high praise to live up to.
08:38Yeah, exactly, right.
08:39So, it's high praise to live up to and it gets a lot of social capital with my kids.
08:42Because I could go and tell them that we went and saw the movie.
08:45I said, you know, you guys want to go Google, you know, your father and Ironman and you'll find out there, right.
08:49So, it got a lot of, it was amusing.
08:51And then it got embarrassing, right.
08:53Now, it's embarrassing because at that time, and this is embarrassing from a personal point of view, at that time, we truly, you know, we could build stuff with absolute, you know, abandon.
09:03Because I didn't have to worry about shareholder return.
09:06I didn't have to worry about any of this stuff, right.
09:08You could just say, like, we can go to a garage.
09:11We are building cool tech.
09:13Whether it makes money for a shareholder or not, was not in 2012.
09:18You didn't think about it, right.
09:19But you wanted to build something which is fundamentally cool.
09:21I think in 2012, Indian Jugaad was probably at its highest point.
09:24At its highest, right.
09:25And you're saying, let's build, I mean, the goal is to build interesting stuff, right.
09:30And whatever is interesting is great.
09:32Now, while what is interesting is great and people get excited by it, as a company grows, you know, you start becoming a little bit more mature.
09:39You're expected to become a little bit more responsible.
09:41You can't be Tony Stark anymore.
09:42You need to be, you need to behave like a, because you are ultimately, these are people who have backed you.
09:47You need to be able to give shareholder return.
09:49You need to have a company which generates profit, right.
09:52Correct.
09:52So that's a measure which is extremely important.
09:55And what we live by is that, say, look, you know, everybody, any company can be a startup.
10:00You can take investor money, burn it and become a unicorn.
10:03But you want to be a true entrepreneur, right.
10:06A cycle rickshaw, a shop guy is a true entrepreneur.
10:09He's, you know, earning a profit at the end of the day because he doesn't make a profit.
10:12He's not going to survive, right.
10:13Correct.
10:14So you want to be, you don't want to be a startup because I think a startup is just burning someone else's money.
10:20Someone else's money.
10:20You want to be a true entrepreneur where you are generating profit and returning value to shareholders.
10:26So along the way, he said, look, that's where the focus needs to be.
10:29So which took some of the joy out of being a tinkerer.
10:32Now we're getting back to it because now we have generated, now we've created shareholder value.
10:37The business is generating profit.
10:38So now I'm actually going back to looking at new technologies that we want to build, right.
10:43And some of them are absolute fundamental game changers.
10:46Like for instance, we are going back to the drawing board to build this high power microwave system.
10:50So traditionally, when you look at these drones, most drones, you know, if you want to take down drones today, you know, people shoot, you know, your L-70 gun or your ZOO gun at it and you shoot bullets at it, right.
11:02Now, which means there's a lot of lead in the air.
11:04Now, what happens if you have a hundred drones, a thousand drones coming at you and you need to be able to disable them.
11:09How do you disable them simultaneously?
11:11So we are building this high power microwave system, which essentially can simultaneously disable, you know, a hundred drones, which are coming in essentially fry their electronics.
11:19So it shoots microwave.
11:21So essentially, if you put your cell phone inside your microwave and turn on the microwave, your cell phone will be fried, right.
11:26It does the same thing, but does this at two kilometers or five kilometers, right.
11:31It essentially takes all that energy.
11:33There's an antenna and it directs that energy towards that drone over a wide area.
11:38You don't shoot anything at the drone, but you completely destroy the electronics.
11:41Now, this is technology, which is, you know, super fundamental, right.
11:45There are only two, three places in the world which have this technology and they can't do long ranges.
11:49They can only do about a kilometer or so.
11:51Is this similar to the Iron Dome in some sense?
11:53No, this is actually, Iron Dome can use this or the Sudarshan Chakra can use this, which is what we have right now, right.
11:58But it's actually similar to what Epirus does in the US.
12:02So Epirus is an American company and they've, you know, built, you know, high power microwave systems.
12:08Their range is still limited.
12:08So our goal is to be able to do anything in excess of three kilometers.
12:11So now this is a great opportunity for us to get back to tinkering, right.
12:15So I'm super excited about it.
12:16Right, right.
12:17What's the name of this product again, you said?
12:19This is called WaveStrike.
12:20WaveStrike.
12:21So WaveStrike essentially is a high power microwave system built on something called a multi-beam clistron, right.
12:27So essentially what's inside your microwave is a magnetron.
12:30So this is something called a clistron, which essentially can generate very high energy.
12:34Okay.
12:34And you can essentially channel that energy to take down, you know, swamps of drones.
12:39Is it still in the R&D phase?
12:40It's in the R&D phase.
12:42We have an ongoing program with the Indian Navy.
12:44And we have a letter of intent from a foreign customer, unnamed classified program, where once we are ready with this, this is not going to be ready for the next couple of years, right.
12:53Because we're building it right now.
12:54And both of them have given us orders.
12:56So we will build it.
12:57When we build it, we will sell to these customers.
13:00But at least, so the reason to go get, you know, the validation both from the Indian Navy and from the European customer was, you want a customer to actually like what you're building.
13:10So we showed them, you know, core technology of what we've built.
13:12We haven't built the product yet.
13:13We're still building it.
13:14But we showed them what we have here, right, in terms of the subsystems.
13:17And they were very excited.
13:18And they said, look, we will give you this.
13:20And then, so it gives us an opportunity for the next two years to have some fun and build something interesting.
13:25Fascinating.
13:27Is that one of the main focus areas?
13:29So in the past, what we did is, you know, we built electro-optics and imaging systems.
13:33But these were subsystems, right?
13:35We made sights which went on to a gun.
13:37We made subsystems which went on to an aircraft or went on to a missile.
13:41But we didn't make the end system itself.
13:44So now what we're looking at is, let's start focusing on making the end system.
13:48Modern day wars are going to require different kinds of missiles.
13:51The high-powered microwave is one such kind of missile, right?
13:54So we will build that.
13:55Modern day wars cannot, I mean, today you have a lot of drones.
13:58But these drones are not really high-speed drones, right?
14:02And most of these drones can be shot down.
14:03They fly at like 100 kilometers, 200 kilometers, 250 kilometers.
14:06Correct.
14:06So we said, let's look at drones which are, I mean, munitions which can fly at, you know, Mark 1 or Mark 2, you know, subsonic, supersonic.
14:14So either jet engine propelled systems.
14:16So building jet engine propelled aerospace systems and high-power microwave are two big critical areas for us, right?
14:23And these are the two areas which we think, you know, from a business point, we can add a lot of value
14:28when we can build, you know, over the next, you know, five, six years.
14:31Interesting.
14:32So right now, your biggest customers would be spread across the world, right?
14:36That's right.
14:36And which is like the star product in your portfolio?
14:40See, our core business is to enable autonomy in defense.
14:43When we do defense itself, so if you look at the products that we make, all the products that we make are products that enable autonomy in defense.
14:51Okay.
14:51And the idea is very simple.
14:53How do you assist humans?
14:55How do you augment humans?
14:57And how do you eventually replace humans on the battlefield?
14:59Because if you can do this effectively, you essentially are going to, I mean, save many humans from getting shot, avoid collateral damage, right?
15:06So we said that's our core mission.
15:08So as a mission to enable autonomy on the battlefield, all the technology components that is required, whether, so if you want to enable autonomy, you need to be able to see the environment.
15:17You need to see who your adversaries are.
15:19You need to see who your friends are.
15:20You need to be able to see through smoke, see through fog, see through dust.
15:23So you need to build good sensing systems, right?
15:26So you need sensors, imaging systems, which are required.
15:29Correct.
15:29Now you also need to understand what's happening.
15:31So you need to understand how far is my enemy?
15:34You know, can, I mean, and am I going to hit the enemy or am I going to hit a friend, right?
15:37I need to have some kind of metric understanding of the environment, right?
15:42So you have to understand the environment.
15:43And third is I need to be able to communicate.
15:46So I've seen and understood.
15:47I need to be able to communicate this to other people who can't see it, right?
15:50So I'm in a hill.
15:52I've seen what's around there, but somebody is far behind me.
15:55He doesn't know any, if he has to shoot a missile there, I need to communicate to him where the enemy is, right?
15:59So I need to be able to communicate efficiently.
16:01And fourth is I need to be able to build systems which can guide and take control to be able to neutralize the threat.
16:07So as a company, we build across the stack.
16:11So we build sensing systems.
16:12We build C and interpretation systems.
16:14We build communication systems and we build control systems to essentially take action, right?
16:18And our products in terms of the, one is of course the fact that, you know, when we started, the main thing in defense is you don't want to be a one trick pony, right?
16:26I mean, if you want to build a defense company, you want to be able to address everything that is required for an infantry soldier, for a special ops soldier, for a tank commander, for a UAV, for a missile and for a naval submarine, right?
16:39So you want to build products which can go across all of them.
16:42So it's like choosing your favorite child.
16:44So I don't, we don't, we build a lot of products across all of them, but our biggest selling product are our tactical systems products, which, you know, soldiers use, which is essentially weapon sites.
16:55So we sell them in large quantities.
16:56So it's a, it's a question of products that are sold in large quantities and high volume and are priced relatively lower to products that are sold in lower volume, but which are far more complex, right?
17:07So if you, and so we build both ends of the spectrum.
17:10I read somewhere that in the night equipment, night vision equipment space, the lion's share of what the Indian tri-forces have sourced in the last few years have been from Tonbo.
17:21Could you tell us a little more about that?
17:23India as a, you know, as a customer, in terms of night enablement, right?
17:27So this is starting from 2012.
17:30So one of the things which we started in 2012 was the initial products that we made were our thermal imaging systems.
17:36So these are infrared imaging systems, which can see in complete darkness, right?
17:39So, so that, those are the kind of core imaging systems that we built in 2012.
17:44Now, at that time, majority of the procurements, which happened in the Northern Command, which essentially is in Udampur, and a lot of the central procurements,
17:52the CRPF, the BSF, the NSG, all the night vision systems in thermal imaging came from Tonbo, right?
17:58And fundamentally, because in the past, a lot of those systems used to come from outside.
18:04They were imported and, or they were built by, you know, Indian PSUs.
18:08One of the things which we set out to do at that point was we went to the customer and told them that, look, you are not buying advanced technology because you think that it's very expensive.
18:15But what you need to look at advanced technology is look at what's your concept of operations.
18:20What are you, what do you need it for?
18:21If you're going to put this on a rifle, you don't want a weapon site, which weighs one and a half kgs.
18:26You want a weapon site, which weighs 500 grams.
18:28And today, if I can give you a weapon site, which weighs 500 grams, which can last eight hours and which can engage a target at one kilometer, that's what you need for your operations.
18:37So, focus on building that.
18:38So, over the years and partly also due to the fact that, you know, we did make a lot of these sales to some of our international customers and that gave a good reference point to the Indian customer.
18:48We built a portfolio of these systems, which started getting inducted into the Indian Armed Forces.
18:53So, a fairly large volume, right?
18:54And I don't know what the exact percentage is right now, but a significant percentage of infrared imaging equipment in the Indian Armed Forces came from Tonbo at that point.
19:03There's also an interesting story of how the Ministry of Defense officials actually first spotted Tonbo's products, right?
19:11Yeah, so it's kind of funny, right?
19:12It was many, many years back and this was in 2012.
19:16We built a multi-sensor imaging system, which can see in daytime and see at nighttime simultaneously.
19:23So, it's a combination of infrared and your normal visibility.
19:26Because as a human, your eyes can see in the visible spectrum, you can see in daytime.
19:29But if I switch off all these lights, you can't see at nighttime, right?
19:33So, but the problem with traditional infrared systems is, while they can see at nighttime, they don't see color and they don't see texture.
19:41So, you don't have features which are clear, right?
19:44But what if you could see texture, color, and you could also see at nighttime and sense heat?
19:49Then you essentially can get the best of both.
19:51So, we built some fundamental technology.
19:53So, Tonbo owns a patent on multi-sensor fusion systems.
19:56And we built this at that time.
19:58And we built this to be with very low power.
20:00It was an incredible piece of core technology that we built, which is a fusion imager.
20:05Now, we built a product around it.
20:07And we said, look, who will actually adopt this product?
20:10Because it is an interesting product.
20:12And so, we took it to the Navy SEALs and the Special Operations Command.
20:16And they bought the first couple of systems in there, right?
20:20And they used the system on a couple of exercises.
20:24So, the Indian Armed Forces essentially had heard about it.
20:27And they said, well, and then they were told that, look, it came from, you know, this company in Bangalore.
20:33And then we got a call from, you know, headquarters saying, you know, why don't you sell these products out to India?
20:39And we said, yeah, sure.
20:40We'd love to do that.
20:40It's just that, you know, we've never had an opportunity to actually sell it here.
20:44And so, that's how it started.
20:45So, that's how the Indian Armed Forces essentially, I mean, they had seen this product elsewhere.
20:49And they found that it was an interesting piece of equipment.
20:52And they found that it was built by an Indian company.
20:54And they wanted to buy it at that point.
20:55But is this a common thing when you are selling to governments and militaries worldwide?
21:01Do they always want to see proof points from the like of, say, a U.S. or an Israel?
21:06So, we sell to, you know, the Special Forces.
21:08We sell to the IDF.
21:10We sell to the Mossad.
21:12Now, they're not our primary customers at all, right?
21:15Our primary customer is the emerging market.
21:18India is an important emerging market.
21:20India is one of our most important customers.
21:22Other emerging markets around the world, right?
21:24Whether it's Africa or whether it is Philippines or Vietnam or Southeast Asia.
21:28Now, but the problem with a lot of these emerging markets, right, is if you went to them and if you could, if you walk in with, you know, a reference point saying, the U.S. Navy SEAL is my customer.
21:41SEAL Team 6 deployed my product, deployed my system when they went to catch Osama bin Laden, right?
21:48Or if Mossad used my system when they went for a really critical mission, right?
21:54That is incredible reference point, right?
21:57And no questions are asked.
21:59Because at that time, you know, these, so they are so overawed with the fact that this is a product which is being used by best.
22:06So, our model has been, let's lead with the best in terms of technology superiority, right?
22:13Let's build for it.
22:14But let's deploy large volumes in the markets which matter to us.
22:18And the markets which matter to us is the emerging market, right?
22:21And because that's where volumes are there.
22:22And most importantly, this is the market which is underserved.
22:26Because this is a market which you want to truly democratize, right?
22:28You want to make sure that infrared imaging equipment, night fighting equipment, you know, advanced missile systems are all available to these markets.
22:37Because that's where the volumes can come in, right?
22:39And so that's the way we look at our business.
22:41We said, let's do it only for reference points but nothing beyond it.
22:44Yeah.
22:45But the example that you mentioned, was your product actually used?
22:48It was not used with Osama bin Laden's case.
22:51No.
22:52But it was used by SEAL Team 6.
22:53So, it was used by different SEAL teams.
22:55So, and the idea was, you know, the interesting thing about some of these people who buy these products is they want even a 1% improvement in performance is extremely important to them, right?
23:09If you can save 10 grams or you can save 100 grams or you can increase your, you know, endurance by, you know, 1 hour or you can increase your range by 20 meters or 50 meters or 100 meters, all of that is very important to them, right?
23:22And every, if every increment is important to someone who's already at the 99th percentile, right?
23:28And so we said, let's, let's target that because if you do that, the other, other big thing it gets you is it puts your R&D in overdrive mode, right?
23:37It gives you the ability to build great technology and focus on the technology, right?
23:42And at that time, and you're able to validate it against, if you can compete against, you know, a SEGM in France or a BAE in the US, you know that your product is extremely good, right?
23:52And you know that the customer is buying your product because it's good, not because it happens to be cheaper, right?
23:57And I think that's an important validation for us because that is something which we crave towards.
24:01In a place like Bangalore, how do you compete for talent?
24:04How do you make sure that you get the right fit?
24:06Because competition is huge.
24:09Salaries are going up year on year, especially after the pandemic.
24:14How do you find the right kind of talent that sort of buys into the mission of the company?
24:18So I think the people joining all have different aspirations at different stages of their life, right?
24:24In the initial stages, let's say for instance, and I'll walk through these different sets of people who join in, right?
24:29People who are joining out of college or just very, very early career, many of them, let's say, want to go to grad school.
24:38So at that time, and this is how we did over the years also, right?
24:41We said, you know, you want to go to grad school, you go work in a traditional company, you are not going to get experience building all these systems.
24:48You won't get the ability to do research in fundamental technologies.
24:51You're not going to get the ability to interact with faculty who are working with the company.
24:55I'll get you all of that.
24:57Right.
24:57Give me two years of your life.
24:59Do that.
25:00I'll write a reference letter for you to go to grad school.
25:02Our initial bunch of people, we had so many people in the company who came in, worked for two years.
25:08They went to top 10 grad schools in the US based on the credibility of what they built here.
25:13They did, they published papers, they wrote patents, they worked and they enjoyed their two years, right?
25:18And even in our mind, the understanding is very clear.
25:21These are people who are going to fly away after two years because it is, that's the goal.
25:24Correct.
25:25Then you have people who have worked in MNCs.
25:29Now in MNCs, if you're working in Texas Instruments, you're working in Qualcomm, you're working in NVIDIA, you're doing a great job, you're building stuff, but you're working on one small part of the problem.
25:39You don't have visibility to the entire problem.
25:42So what we try to hire is people who have an aspiration to be a systems person.
25:47Okay.
25:47We're saying, I don't want to just do coding on a chip.
25:50I'm interested in the product and I'm interested in realizing the sale of the product to the customer.
25:55Right.
25:55Now, believe it or not, there are a large number of people in the country.
25:59If given an opportunity to be a systems person, they would actually be a systems person because then it gives them, it also helps them build their skill set.
26:06And the way you look at it is, it's not just because you want them to come and spend the next 20 years of their life working with you.
26:13You want them to be able to build enough of a skill set that even if they choose to leave you, they can go work anywhere.
26:19And if you can give them that path, saying, look, you've come to Tonbo, you're going to learn software, you're going to learn hardware, you're going to put the system, you're going to take it to a trial, you're going to be sitting in a customer's side.
26:28Which other place are you going to be able to do that?
26:31And by the way, along with this, you will work with a Carnegie Mellon prof, an MIT prof, a University of Washington, Seattle prof in building next generation tech.
26:40You have access to those people.
26:41You have access to a customer.
26:43You're building a product.
26:44The spectrum of things that you can do is going to be a lot more than what you can do at a traditional MNC.
26:50So our sales pitch or a recruitment pitch to many of them, the young ones is, come here, we'll show you a path to go to great grad school.
26:57The older one, come here, you'll build great skill.
27:01So tomorrow you go become, you want to run a company, you want to, and my motto is very clear.
27:06I don't want to hire people and say, I want you to come and stay here for life.
27:09Because you want to come here, you want them to experience the best of what they can give and a company to experience the best of what they can give and what we can give them.
27:17So I think that's worked out quite well.
27:19So our attrition rates are extremely low.
27:21We have people who have been with us for a very long time because they just enjoy what they're doing.
27:24And we are a completely, we are a completely unmanaged company in the sense, it is not hierarchical by any standards.
27:32People are allowed to break things.
27:34So we have been very clear that, look, if you don't break things, you will not learn.
27:38I don't care if you break things, we will lose money, but you will learn and you will be careful the next time.
27:43So we give, even a new person is thrown into the responsibility of handling expensive systems, expensive products.
27:50You might think that, look, is it at the cost of you?
27:52It's not because these people calibrate themselves very quickly.
27:55Once people are given the responsibility, they show responsibility very easily.
27:59So I think that's worked quite well for us.
28:02Arvind, you have two other co-founders and they have been with the company and with you personally for a very long time.
28:08In this founder group, when there are disagreements, how do you resolve them?
28:14What philosophy do you implement there so that decision-making doesn't get impacted
28:19and so that the company is able to continue the velocity without losing momentum?
28:24So Ankit and Ankit Kumar and Cecilia.
28:26So Ankit is the chief business and sales revenue officer.
28:29Right.
28:29And Cecilia is the chief commercial officer.
28:32Cecilia is a chartered accountant who handles finance and commercial operations.
28:37Ankit is a technologist who moved from being a CTO to becoming the chief business officer, right?
28:43Nice.
28:43Both of them have been with me for 20 years.
28:46Wow.
28:46Okay.
28:462005 is when in Sarnoff, they both were hired in.
28:50Ankit came out of college.
28:51This is his first job.
28:53I was his first manager.
28:54I see.
28:5520 years working next to me.
28:57We have zero disagreement.
28:59We have, no, we have zero, we have, actually, let me put it this way.
29:01We have zero fights.
29:03We have both, all three of us, right?
29:05Because the point is that there is implicit trust in, let's say, for instance, if there
29:11is something related to finance, something related to accounting, something related to
29:16customs, something related to duty, we defer it to Cecilia without either of us even thinking
29:22about it because she's a person who knows the most, right?
29:25Customer-related things which are there.
29:28Ankit and I, you know, discuss and say, let's go.
29:30So, funnily, which is the thing that, you know, we've had, because people say, you know,
29:34you have a team of founders, co-founders, there are disagreements, there are fights.
29:38We've not had any fights at all ever in 20 years.
29:41Wow.
29:42Okay.
29:42In 20 years, and it's fundamentally because each of us respects that what the other person
29:48can do and understands that the other person can do a better job at that particular job
29:53which is there, right?
29:54Okay.
29:54So, you let it go.
29:55And I think that consensus and being able to work together in harmony, right?
29:58And 20 years is a reasonable period of time.
30:00It's not…
30:01Definitely.
30:01And 20 years, the fact that, you know, you've been able to work.
30:04It's not that we don't, as I said, not that we don't disagree.
30:08We don't have fights.
30:09Yeah.
30:09We do disagree, definitely, right?
30:10We do…
30:10Disagree and commit, maybe.
30:12Commit and say that, look, we defer it to the person, right?
30:14You have, because you need to have the discussion to say that, look, do you think that this
30:19is the right way or that is the right way, something to do, right?
30:21Or you have a debate, but you ultimately have to defer it to one person and then feel good
30:25about the fact that the person is making…
30:27And even if any of us is making a wrong decision about it, right?
30:30It's perfectly fine.
30:31It's not like you're going to come back and say, why the hell did you do, right?
30:33Because one of the things which we really…
30:35And what I really wanted in this company when we started it is, you know, I want people
30:41to come to a company to be happy, right?
30:43I need this to be an organization where people are saying, because working is a very small
30:47portion of your…
30:48I mean, you've got the rest of life to do, other things to do, right?
30:51Yeah.
30:51You don't want to come to your…
30:52You don't want to come to work and you don't want politics at work.
30:55You don't want all this, you know, trying to figure out that, is this the way I'm
30:59going to climb up the ladder and become an EVP or an SVP or a program director?
31:03You don't want any of that stuff, right?
31:04Yeah.
31:05You want people to come together, be able to respect each other and work well.
31:08And we figured if we three were doing it that by example, the next group of people will
31:14do the same, which is what my CTO does.
31:16My CTO is Prashant, who's been with me for 15 years.
31:18Okay.
31:19So all of these people who are there, many of them have been people who have been with
31:22us for a very, very long time.
31:24Right.
31:25And these are people who have understood that this is the way we want the culture of the
31:28office.
31:29I don't care if our revenue slips.
31:31I don't care that if we make a mistake, if the product fails, nothing, right?
31:35But I do care about the attitude that we have with each other.
31:38Okay.
31:39And because something breaks, I will not have somebody shout at somebody and say that he's
31:45broken it, right?
31:46Because the point is, you know, everybody's putting in their effort.
31:48And I think that's worked very well with us because I think people…
31:52It is a very, I mean, and of course, when a company becomes larger, some of these challenges
31:58come in more, right?
31:59When it is 50 people, 100 people, now at 350 people, maintaining that level of harmony is
32:04a challenge, right?
32:05But you want, but that's the message you want to give people.
32:07That's what you value the most, right?
32:09You want harmony far more than anything else.
32:11Absolutely.
32:12So from your experience of seeing stability at the top with your co-founders, what would
32:18be your top advice to other entrepreneurs who want to get into defense tech, build sustainable,
32:24scalable teams, both in terms of the co-founders that they pick and in terms of the opportunity
32:29or the problem statement that they go after?
32:31See, I think in terms of co-founders, it's, you know, one of the key things in a core team
32:37is you need to have good complementarity of skills, right?
32:42You have three people and all three are core technical people whose interest is saying,
32:47you know, building a system.
32:49You're going to have a lot of fights, you're going to have a lot of disagreements, you're
32:52going to have a lot of unhappiness and you're going to have some of them leave, right?
32:56But if you have a team where it's very clear that each of your skill sets is unique to you,
33:01right?
33:02And you can do it much better than the others.
33:06So your job as a team is to first go identify, even if you don't start off with that, right?
33:11You start off with whatever you start with, but if you're able to partition between yourself,
33:15whether it is two co-founders or three co-founders, you're able to partition the core capabilities
33:19and say, the buck stops me for that particular aspect.
33:24It doesn't stop with me for everything, but it stops with me for this particular aspect.
33:27I think then it becomes very harmonious, right?
33:29So I think that's something which is, I mean, there's nothing to do with defense.
33:32It's with any business, right?
33:33If you have co-founders, let's just make sure that that is done the right way, right?
33:38And you need to have that kind of trust because we implicitly trust each other, so it makes
33:43it much easier.
33:44So you don't have to worry about it so much.
33:47The second is in terms of what you're looking to build, right?
33:49And I think, and this is more true for the defense companies in India we're starting
33:53off, is that my recommendation is do not build with the Indian customer as your goal or an Indian
34:02spec that you're getting as a goal.
34:04And the reason being very simple, right?
34:06Because most companies are believed, they think that I'll build it in India, after I prove
34:11it in India, I'll be able to take the same thing and scale it for the rest of the world.
34:14That is not going to be possible, right?
34:17Because what you build for an Indian customer spec, if you take that spec and try to go compete
34:24on a European tender or you go to the US and say, I'm going to take the product there,
34:30that product will not meet the spec what is expected there, right?
34:34Because…
34:35Is it the spec that's the challenge or is it the pricing?
34:37It's the spec.
34:38Price doesn't matter, right?
34:39Price will be in fact cheaper, right?
34:40You're building it in India and the cost will be there.
34:42So price…
34:43Because see, the point is that the customer there is not really worried about the price
34:46so much.
34:47They care about the spec, right?
34:48They care about are you building something which is truly unique?
34:51Like for instance, we built these weapon sites, one of the compliments we got and the feedback
34:57we got from many of our initial customers was, they said your weapon sites are beautiful,
35:01right?
35:02And they're beautiful because they don't look like ugly, you know, metal pieces kept there
35:07because we said, look, you know, you're spending, you spend 1 lakh or 1.5 lakhs on an iPhone,
35:12because you like the beauty of an iPhone, how you hold it.
35:16You're building, you're spending 5 lakhs or 6 lakhs on a weapon site.
35:19You want it to feel good, you want it to be ergonomic, you want it to be easy to use
35:23and you want to feel that you're holding a piece.
35:26Because it's military, you don't want to have something which looks clunky, right?
35:31Which is what the case was when we came in 2012, we said, look, our goal is, you need
35:37to think like Apple, even when you're building something for the defense market, it needs
35:41to have ergonomics, it needs to have aesthetics, it needs to have the Johnny Ive philosophy of
35:48building an Apple device needs to be there on a weapon site or needs to be there on your
35:52gimbal, right?
35:53And I think that's very critical.
35:54So the looks, the form, the ergonomics and the fact that it's truly attractive, right?
36:01Is important to us besides the functionality.
36:03Functionality is needless to say, it's got to be top notch.
36:05So you develop a prototype in house.
36:07Absolutely.
36:08You show it to customers and then, depending on orders, you build it, right?
36:12Because typically what happens in the past, defense companies or big companies used to
36:16have manufacturing fabs, right?
36:17So Tata at Bharat Forge would call their customers and say, look at my fab, I've got 100 acres
36:23land, 100,000 square feet place, clean rooms, people in hard hats.
36:28I have the capability, I have the capacity to manufacture what you want, right?
36:32I don't have that.
36:34So what I'm trying to demonstrate is, I have the capability to do it.
36:37Now I can demonstrate the capability only if I build the product, because if I show the
36:41product on a PowerPoint and tell a customer I have the capability to build it, he's not
36:44going to be able to believe it, because when he goes to Tata or Bharat Forge, he's seeing
36:47the infrastructure, so he can understand capacity very well, right?
36:50So we said capability can only be shown if you build a prototype, so my investment is
36:55going to be in to build a prototype.
36:56So we built, for instance, we have a program going on with Bharat Dynamics, where we make
37:00the missile seeker, which goes on to the Amoga missile, which is an anti-tank guided
37:04missile.
37:05Right.
37:06Now this is a missile seeker.
37:07Now, because India wanted to indigenize it, we didn't want to buy it from either the Spike
37:11or the Javelin.
37:14We wanted to make our own Indian anti-tank guided missile.
37:17Now, if I went to Bharat Dynamics and said, I have the capability to make a missile seeker,
37:21Bharat Dynamics will say, well, look, everybody says they can make it, you can't make it.
37:25So we made a missile seeker, we took it to Israel, I found friendly partners who potentially
37:30will put it on their platform, test the whole thing, then came to Bharat Dynamics and said,
37:35by the way, here is a missile seeker I have made.
37:37Now I'd like to make this missile seeker to go onto your missile.
37:40The conversation is completely different.
37:42So my investment was not in CapEx.
37:44It was an R&D and the first product that was made that I would have spent about a million
37:47dollars doing it.
37:48Right.
37:49But that million dollars is far better well spent there than putting that million dollars
37:53in land and a facility.
37:55So our view is that that is a much better option and better use of money in terms of demonstration
37:59of what you want to do.
38:00Interesting.
38:01I also wanted you to demystify some of the terms we have used in this conversation.
38:04Sure.
38:05Missile seeker, for instance, what does it mean in a layman's language?
38:08A missile seeker is the eyes in the brain of a weapon system.
38:12Okay.
38:13So if you have a missile, if you are shooting something, the system that you are shooting,
38:20the missile needs to know where to go.
38:22Right.
38:23And it needs to know how to go there.
38:25Right.
38:26So it sees the image.
38:27It says this is the image I want to.
38:28It sees an object.
38:30It matches that object and says that is the object I want to hit.
38:33I've seen a tank.
38:34It classifies that as a tank.
38:36It understands that's an enemy tank.
38:37So now you know that's what it wants to hit.
38:39Now it needs to seek.
38:40So it needs to be guided towards it.
38:42So it needs a brain which tells it that the tank is moving, therefore you need to move.
38:47The tank is closed, so no point hitting it on the top, hit it on the side.
38:52The tank is open, you can hit it from the top.
38:54So the brain to tell it what to do.
38:56So a missile seeker essentially is the eyes and the brain of a missile system.
39:00That's all.
39:01What does multi-spectral imaging mean?
39:02So you remember when I started off, I told you that one of the first technologies that we built
39:06was this sensor fusion system.
39:08Right.
39:09Which can see in the daytime, see in color, see texture and sense heat.
39:13Right.
39:14A multi-sensor imaging system is essentially across the spectrum.
39:17Okay.
39:18So human eye operates in a visible spectrum.
39:20Right.
39:21So that is essentially between 400 nanometers to 700 nanometers.
39:24Right.
39:25Infrared, which can sense heat, operates in, you know, 8 to 14 micron.
39:30So big wavelength, right?
39:31So two different spectrums.
39:32Right.
39:33So if you have a camera or a sensor, which can combine both these spectrums, so you can
39:39see both of them together in the same image, that is what a multi-sensor imaging fusion system
39:44or a multi-spectral imaging system does.
39:46Essentially combines two different wavelength spectrums into a single image.
39:50Hmm.
39:51There was a lot of news, you know, in the recent past about how India's defense capabilities
39:55are getting enhanced, especially in the, you know, aftermath of Operation Sindur.
39:59There's also a wave of defense procurement, emergency defense procurement that is happening
40:03right now.
40:04How do you look at these as opportunities?
40:06Two things which happened after Operation Sindur, right?
40:08And this is kind of similar with Operation URI as well.
40:10I mean, with the URI strike as well in the past, right?
40:13Whenever one of these things happen, sometimes there's a knee-jerk reaction.
40:17Right.
40:18And the knee-jerk reaction essentially gets to let's buy whatever as quickly as possible.
40:22During a war, that's important.
40:24That's needed, right?
40:25And that's what Ukraine's been doing.
40:26Ukraine does constant procurement.
40:29Then they innovated and they realize that it's no longer a one-week war.
40:32It's a three-year war.
40:33And they had to kind of…
40:34Do you have deployments right now?
40:35We have deployments in NATO.
40:36We have deployments in Europe.
40:38Some of them are places which are classified, but we do have deployments across NATO.
40:43Right.
40:44After Operation Sindur, one of the things was that let's start…
40:48We know that we have certain capabilities which are lacking, right?
40:51We know that we do want capabilities to be able to take down drone swarms, right?
40:55We know we need capabilities where we need very high-speed drones like I was telling you, right?
40:59Yeah.
41:00So, the government has started calibrating.
41:02After the initial two-week, three-week of hurried purchase, they have calibrated it.
41:08Okay.
41:09Now, the emergency procurement and the way they're thinking about it is more thought-out.
41:12And saying, let's think about what are the capabilities which we are potentially lacking here.
41:16Right.
41:17And how do we equip ourselves over the next six, nine months to make sure that…
41:21See, the skirmish would have stopped there, right?
41:24But we know how our neighbors are, right?
41:26We don't know at what point things are going to flare up.
41:29So, let's be prepared.
41:30Let's build all this.
41:31But let's do it in a measured, calibrated fashion.
41:34So, the emergency procurement, even though it's called emergency procurement,
41:37it's still a more calibrated procedure where the commands and the central procurement work hand-in-hand.
41:43Specs are done.
41:44Trials are done.
41:45A lot of new companies are coming up, right?
41:47A lot of new companies are demonstrating systems.
41:49And I think that's…
41:50I mean, that's pretty critical because I think now it gives them an opportunity to actually think it out and build it properly.
41:56Some of these jolts are good for the system sometimes because then it allows you to rethink what you've been procuring in the past.
42:02We've been spending so much time thinking about, we want to modernize a battle tank.
42:05And we realize that modernizing this battle tank may not be the topmost priority.
42:09Building a supersonic missile might be a higher priority, right?
42:12So, let's think about those kind of problems.
42:14Correct.
42:15So, I think reprioritization has happened right now.
42:17Did any of your products see action during India's recent operations, be it Sindur, be it URI?
42:25URI actually, a lot of them.
42:27So, original URI strike, the night mission systems which were there, and Northern Command fielded a lot of our systems out there.
42:33I see.
42:34We knew about it after they had done the strike, obviously, because we didn't know about it during…
42:38After that, because…
42:39I mean, they came and told us about the system.
42:41So, everything except that ridiculous bird, which had nothing to do with us, right?
42:44If you saw the movie, you'd see a bird there, but I don't know if you've seen the movie, which talks about the URI strike.
42:50Right.
42:51The night vision systems in terms of night enablement of the soldiers who went into URI, a lot of the equipment came from Tonbo.
42:57Okay.
42:58In Sindur, we built systems which essentially were used on the air defense guns, right?
43:02These were night enablements of the Zoo-23 guns, which essentially were used to shoot down drones.
43:07So, the night vision systems which went in the thermal imaging systems and the target tracking systems on the Zoo-23 were ours.
43:13So, they were used in both these commissions.
43:15In your recent podcast, you talked about Tonbo's philosophy of offering Ferrari at the price of Maruti.
43:22Walk us through the thinking behind this mindset.
43:26The point there is, as a company, and if you keep the Maruti and the Ferrari analogy together, right?
43:31As a company, we make Ferraris, right?
43:34We make a Ferrari engine, we make a Ferrari body, right?
43:37We don't make a Maruti engine, we don't make a Maruti body, right?
43:40Fundamentally, because we know that the operations which require this…
43:44Maruti is a wonderful car, right?
43:46But Maruti is not suitable to use in mountainous terrain.
43:49It is not a four-wheel drive.
43:51It's not something which is going to go into water.
43:53So, it's not something which can go at 300 km per hour, right?
43:57So, it is not the spec that you have or what is required in terms of the concept of operations today calls for a Ferrari, right?
44:05And we said, look, in terms of our business, what is expected from our products is the capability of a Ferrari, right?
44:13Yeah.
44:14So, we said, if you are a Ferrari, you don't make a lower cost system because you are a Ferrari.
44:19Because your primary business and your expertise is doing that, right?
44:22Yeah.
44:23But we realize the fact that there are two problems when it comes to emerging markets, right?
44:27Cost is an important factor, right?
44:29Now, when we go to the Indian customer and you tell them that, listen, I am making a Ferrari, pay me the cost of a Ferrari,
44:36an Indian customer will say, even though I love the product, even though it's fantastic, I salivate over it, but I will not buy it.
44:42Budget nahi hai.
44:43Budget nahi hai.
44:44Right?
44:45Kitna degi is the problem, right?
44:46It's not, it's a thing about not, I am not, I mean, I love it, but I cannot, I don't want to buy it because it's not good enough, right?
44:52I mean, in terms of, it doesn't meet the number of units that I require.
44:55Right.
44:56So, but international customers appreciate what a Ferrari can do and are willing to pay the price of a Ferrari.
45:02Correct.
45:03So, what we do is, we said, I'm not going to build different SKUs, Maruti and a Ferrari because my brand is a Ferrari, right?
45:10That's the reason why Ferrari does not make low-cost cars.
45:13Indeed.
45:14I mean, a Ferrari will not make a Nano, right?
45:16Because even though they've made Nano, people sell it, but it's just not in their DNA, right?
45:21So, we said, but we still want to sell to the emerging market.
45:24We still want to sell the high volumes.
45:26We have aspiration to be able to sell as many as the Nano or the Maruti.
45:30How do we do it?
45:31So, we said, let's sell in the international market for the price of a Ferrari.
45:34Let's sell in the Indian market for something which is a little bit more than a Maruti, right?
45:38Right.
45:39Maybe not the Maruti, but a little bit more.
45:40And convince the customer that he's not going anywhere close to a Ferrari price, but he's going to like maybe a Maruti plus 10% or 20%, right?
45:48And using the combination and the average of these two, you can run a fairly profitable business, right?
45:55Because you're building a spec.
45:56Because my problem is, if I have to build a Maruti, I have to build new specs and I can sell it only in India, it doesn't make sense, right?
46:03I said, let's build a Ferrari, get the appreciation of a Ferrari for a global market and sell it in India.
46:08And we found that the Indian customer over the last 5-7 years, it took us to build this credibility.
46:13They valued that more, right?
46:15They said, great, we are getting this high spec system.
46:18Sure, it costs a little more than what it is and now we have actually managed to get it.
46:22Because when you're competing in a tender, ultimately, it is the lowest cost, I mean, the bidder who's going to win, right?
46:27At that point, you're not getting, and the way Indian tenders work is, if let's say the pass mark is 50, whether you make 52 or whether you make 98 is irrelevant, right?
46:37They both treated the same way, right?
46:40But the lowest cost bidder will work, right?
46:43So we said, look, we have to ensure that we are the lowest priced bidder.
46:46At the same time, we don't want to dilute our spec, we will make a Ferrari, right?
46:49And so that's what we sell to the customer.
46:51I think the Ministry of Defence has year marked 2025-2026 as the year of reforms.
46:56If your opinion were to be taken on a couple of changes that need to be made,
47:01so that India becomes one of the top 10 defence exporters, what would you articulate?
47:06See, I think India has got the potential to be a defence exporter just from a geopolitical point of view right now,
47:13because most of the world used to buy from the US, Israel and Russia.
47:18Now they've realized that all these countries have their own problems.
47:21The US is definitely unreliable, there's no point.
47:24Israel has got tons of problems, they can't supply easily.
47:28Russia obviously is fighting their own boss.
47:30India is in a state where the products are good quality.
47:34India is non-aligned in the sense that we are happy to sell to anyone who is a true friendly country, right?
47:41I mean, anyone who is not going to misuse it.
47:43And people are now turning to the point where they realize that India is a good potential supplier, right?
47:48And Armenia was a great example.
47:50I mean, Bharat Forge and Bharat Electronics, Bharat Dynamics, we all sold to Armenia last year, right?
47:56And two years.
47:57Because they realized that India is a good, strong, reliable supplier of fundamental technology or products which can come in from there.
48:03So I think we are already, geopolitically we are based very well.
48:07For us to become an exporter and a strong exporter, I told the ministry many years back as well is,
48:14when you go to a European defence show, you have Saab from Sweden, right?
48:18And companies like Saab.
48:20If you go to their booth, you will find that the defence minister of the country, of Sweden, will be at a Saab booth.
48:27Interesting.
48:28The ambassador of Sweden to the US or any of those guys will be at the booth.
48:34And they will be there saying, this is our company, right?
48:38Without fear of, you know, retribution thinking that, you know, look, why are you supporting a particular private sector?
48:45Do you have a vested interest, right?
48:47Because they are saying, this is a company coming from our country, we own it, right?
48:52I think if India wants to be a true exporter, we need that sitting there.
48:56You need the chief of defence staff, you need the defence minister sitting in a booth, in a foreign expo, standing,
49:03because they have enough political capital, they have enough cloud.
49:07If they are there, enough people are going to come in there.
49:09They go and say, they shouldn't be sitting in public sector enterprises, right?
49:13Because public sector enterprises are fine, I mean, they are doing what they are doing.
49:16I mean, you are sitting in a…
49:17They already have the backing.
49:18Yeah, they are sitting in a HAL booth or sitting in a Bharat Electronics booth.
49:21Sit in booths of private companies which are already selling a lot.
49:27Sit in booths of private companies which have made a difference there and say, this is our company.
49:31Without worrying that our company does not mean anything but saying, I have ownership because we are both Indian.
49:36This is our company, right?
49:38I think that is, in my mind if you ask me, that is the single most important thing which will matter when it comes to export out there.
49:45Otherwise, the government…
49:46Projecting a unified phase in some sense.
49:48Absolutely, right?
49:49Saying that there is a commonality of purpose.
49:51We as a company, our purpose is to sell to defense and democratize defense.
49:56India is saying that, look, we would like to export and we want to make sure we democratize it to other countries.
50:01Let's show that unified phase and we are able to do that because the rest of the stuff they do, they have eased the export process.
50:08They have made meetings with foreign defense attachés.
50:12They are doing all the tactical stuff.
50:14They need to do the strategic stuff right now, right?
50:16And this is strategic, right?
50:17Because you sit in UAE, you sit in Africa, you sit in Southeast Asia and you project this.
50:23I think that is going to be phenomenally valuable.
50:25Finally, as a defense preneur, what keeps you up at night?
50:29Nothing actually.
50:30I sleep like a baby.
50:33If I said anything, otherwise I would be untrue.
50:36I do sleep like a baby and I think I sleep like a baby fundamentally because, you know, from a company point, right?
50:45Typically people have a lot of things keeping them aside because you are worried about, you know, is a company, I mean, are they doing the right thing?
50:53I mean, do I need to manage fires?
50:58People manage these fires without me interfering in it, right?
51:02If what I do in it, I would interfere.
51:04They do a great job, right?
51:06So we have a fantastic team.
51:07So your job has got to be hire the right team, trust them to do their job, right?
51:12And if they did that, you as a founder don't need anything to worry about.
51:16I mean, you can think about, you know, what are the interesting problems you want to solve?
51:19All of those are exciting, interesting things to do, which you can do and then go to sleep because you still are, I mean, it is mentally satisfying.
51:26You know your business is doing well.
51:28There is nothing which should keep you.
51:29So quite honestly, nothing really keeps me awake at night.
51:34Well, that's great to hear.
51:35Thank you so much, Arvind, for being at your candid best.
51:38I really enjoyed this conversation.
51:40It was elucidating, enlightening.
51:42Got to learn a lot about the defense tech space and about, you know, Tonbo's operations as a company.
51:48So thank you so much for joining.
51:49Thank you, Arvind.
51:50Pleasure.
51:51Thank you for having me.
51:52Absolutely.
51:53That's it folks for today.
51:55If this episode resonates, please like, share, comment, share it in your networks.
52:00And I will be back with yet another inspiring story of a defensepreneur that's building for Atman Nirbhar Bharat.
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