Defence Tech Startup Unmannd Bags $2 Mn From Speciale Invest, Accel

Defence tech startup Unmannd has raised $2 Mn (about INR 17.7 Cr) in its pre-seed funding round led by Speciale Invest and Accel.

A large part of the funding will be used to expand the engineering, business development and operations teams, cofounder and CEO Yeshwanth Reddy told Inc42. The startup plans to increase its team size to 40 from seven employees currently.

Founded in 2025 by Reddy and Hemaditya Prasad, Unmannd is developing autonomous drones for combat and logistics. The startup claims that its full-stack approach combines custom compute hardware, AI-driven autonomy, and multi-agent mesh networking to create drones that can perceive their surroundings, act autonomously and engage faster than adversaries.

The startup’s flagship ‘Titan’ drones are used in logistics, while ‘Fury’ is an unmanned aerial system (UAS) interceptor. Reddy claimed that the startup’s drones were certified as qualified for battlefield use in August this year by the Indian Army.

Unmannd’s logistics drone Titan 30 can fly at a height of 20,000 ft and has a capacity to carry up to 30 kg of payload. Meanwhile, its high-speed interceptor drones to counter aerial threats, Fury, are set to be launched in the first quarter of 2026.

In a statement, the Bengaluru-based startup said that a portion of the freshly raised capital would be used to commercialise Titan and advance Fury, taking it from proof-of-concept to deployment.

The funding comes at a time when the market for combat drones is expanding rapidly, driven by evolving threats and government policies. Due to the US’ trade war and supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, there is a renewed push for self-reliance in defence tech.

Indian startups are playing a key role in providing indigeneous solutions to the Indian armed forces. Startups like IG Drones and Tonbo Imagingproved the effectiveness of their products during Operation Sindoor earlier this year.

The country’s defence market is set to surge to $40 Bn by 2030 from $27 Bn in 2025, with nearly $19 Bn driven by new-age technologies such as AI, autonomous systems, and quantum computing. As a result, the defence tech startups are seeing a lot of interest from investors, who are looking to capitalise on this opportunity.

For instance, Raphe mPhibr raised $100 Mn (around INR 857 Cr) at a valuation of $900 Mn in a funding round led by General Catalyst earlier this year. Earlier this month, Indrajaal raised INR 48 Cr (about $5.5 Mn) in its pre-Series A round co-led by India Accelerator and Finvolve.

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