00:04On what's brewing today, Dipinder Goyal's aerospace venture, LAT Aerospace, is making
00:08its first move into defence. The company has acquired Gurugram-based Sharang Shakti, an
00:13early-stage defence robotics startup focused on counter-drone systems. Shilpa Rani Peta
00:19joins us now with all of those details. Shilpa, LAT was originally founded with the idea of
00:23building short-take-off aircrafts for regional travel. But what does this move into defence
00:28sort of mean or signify? Well, you know, the acquisition of Sharang Shakti marks an expansion
00:33for LAT Aerospace into defence technology. Now, remember, Dipinder co-founded LAT last year
00:39with the intention of building short-take-off and landing aircrafts meant for short regional
00:44travel. To understand this better, let's look at what Sharang Shakti does and why this is
00:49sort of like, you know, an extension into a different sector. Now, this startup was founded
00:54in 2023 and is an airspace surveillance and defence robotics startup based in Gurugram
00:59that builds integrated counter-drone systems. Now, the company has also raised five crores
01:05so far in pre-seed funding in September 2024 from AUM Ventures and from Venture Highway,
01:12among other angel investors. Now, the company has so far developed two products. One is called
01:17Vajr, which autonomously tracks and neutralises hostile drones using kinetic force. And then
01:24there's also Hunter, which is spelt as H-A-N-T-R, which are small UAVs designed to non-lethally
01:30capture and bring down suspicious drones, which are at short range. Now, Goyal says that the
01:36acquisition is their first move towards building indigenous defence capabilities alongside the
01:42company's long-term mission of developing next generation civil aviation platforms from India
01:46as well. Now, he adds that while both sectors are usually looked at very differently, this
01:52acquisition will help LAT build core capabilities in autonomy, in sensing and in navigation and all
01:58of these in-house. And these are technologies that are common to both defence and to civil
02:04aviation systems and the hybrid electrical regional aircraft that the company is developing as well.
02:10Now, remember, this also comes two months after LAT demonstrated an ultra-short takeoff capability
02:15in its first test flight. Even though the aircraft later crashed due to known structural defects,
02:21the company says that the learnings from that test will now go into the next version.
02:25But the bigger question now is execution. Is that whether LAT can build both a next generation
02:30regional aircraft and a credible defence tech system at the same time? Or does that mark a strategic
02:37broadening that could stretch focus when a company is still at an early stage? Well,
02:42the answers will now lie in how quickly both programmes move from promise to proof. Back to you.
02:49All right, Shilpa, many thanks for taking us through those details now on what's brewing.
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