Up and about

Founders: Ankit Jhanwar, Apoorv Balwani and Devakar Dhingra
Year: 2024
Big idea: Innovative methods for developing silica aerogel sheets

The three entrepreneurs wanted to name their start-up after a globally accepted concept of Indian origin. So, Ankit Jhanwar, Apoorv Balwani and Devakar Dhingra zeroed in on the decimal point system, called dashamlav in Hindi. Playing on this word, they called their venture — a manufacturing company producing flexible silica aerogel sheets for insulation — DashamLabs.

The men have a background in science and engineering. Jhanwar, who has an integrated Master's in Polymer Science, had earlier worked with Dhingra and knew Balwani from their time at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. Balwani and Dhingra are both from Clemson University, U.S.; Balwani holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering, and Dhingra a Master's in Mechanical Engineering.

Jhanwar says the silica aerogel sheets being built by DashamLabs are ideal for large-scale industrial and mobility applications. While silica aerogel is an established technology, the company's innovation is in the production process. According to him, the company uses a proprietary ethanol-based supercritical drying process that enables solvent recovery. This is one of two differentiated manufacturing routes the company has developed, he adds. In the first case, the supercritical CO₂ is replaced with ethanol as the working solvent, allowing the company to achieve more uniform pore structures and produce consistently high-quality aerogel, he says. The company has engineered a closed-loop solvent recovery system that achieves near-complete ethanol recovery and reuse, effectively eliminating solvent costs. It reduces the overall production cost by 20-25%.

The second method removes the need for supercritical conditions. By operating at near-ambient pressure and substantially lower temperatures, the company significantly reduces both capital expenditure and operating costs. This process also provides for greater flexibility in tuning aerogel properties for different applications. He adds that once scaled, this route is projected to reduce costs by 45-50%, compared with traditional supercritical drying-based manufacturing.

Jhanwar says DashamLabs has achieved success in the laboratory and conducted scale-up experiments to produce aerogel sheets. The equipment is expected to be in place early 2026, and production is to start in April-May 2026. Its plant is coming up about 65 km from Gurugram.

The aerogel sheets can typically be used for insulation for temperatures from negative to up to 600ºC, but the company will target users in the 100-600ºC range. This will include industries that use boilers, and those in aerospace applications.

Founders: Yeshwanth Reddy and Hemaditya Prasad
Year: 2025
Big idea: To build smart, autonomous drones

After working on drones in his first two start-ups, Yeshwanth Reddy decided to focus on drones for the defence sector. So, Reddy, who had completed his Master's in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, teamed up with Hemaditya Prasad, with whom he had founded his first start-up. Reddy and Prasad, who graduated in Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering from the Ballari Institute of Technology & Management in Karnataka, set up Unmannd Autonomy to develop smart drones that could navigate autonomously in GPS-denied environments, meeting defence needs.

"The next decade is not about who is going to build a drone that is large, or fast, or heavy. It will be all about autonomy. Whichever is the smartest drone will be the last drone standing or the one that will achieve its mission," says Reddy.

The start-up is building intelligent drones that can perceive their environment, understand the landscape as humans would, and make decisions autonomously by keeping the mission in focus, he explains. Such drones would be particularly useful in conflict zones where GPS navigation may not be possible due to electronic interference and jamming. Unmannd has equipped its drones with vision and acoustic sensors, and spectrum analysers, which help them navigate autonomously. The data from these sensors are fed into Unmannd's proprietary software stack to give the drone the best real-time understanding of the environment.

According to Reddy, Unmannd's first product — Titan 30 — is production-ready. It is meant for use in high-altitude locations, and could be of use to the Army, which uses mules to move its day-to-day cargo at the frontline in high-altitude regions. The Titan 30 will have a payload capacity of 30 kg and can fly to a height of 20,000 feet. The next drone in this series, Titan 60, will have double the payload capacity, he adds.

The second product, Fury, is an interceptor drone that can be operated with or without explosives. Without explosives, it can intercept drones that weigh less than 10 kg. It can carry 300 g of radial explosives and intercept drones of even up to 200 kg in weight in an 8-10-metre range, Reddy says.