ideaForge Technology Ltd (NSE: IDEAFORGE) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Jan. 29, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Ankit Mehta — Chief Executive Officer
Rahul Singh — Vice President, Engineering and Whole-Time Director
Analysts:
Parth Patel — Analyst
Hardik Rawat — Analyst
Dipen Vakil — Analyst
Ritesh Kochar — Analyst
Mithun Ashworth — Analyst
Jayesh Parekh — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Hello ladies and gentlemen, you have been connected to the Q3 FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call of Idea Technology Limited. The call will begin shortly. Please stay connected. Please note that you have been connected to the Q3 FY ’25 earnings conference call of Technology Limited. The call will begin shortly. Please stay connected ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call of Technology Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call. Please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr Parth Patel from Orient Capital. Thank you, and over to you, Mr Patel.
Parth Patel — Analyst
Thank you, Michelle. On behalf of Orient Capital, I welcome you all to Technology Limited Q3 and Nine-Month FY ’25 earnings conference call. From the management side, we have Mr Ankit Mehta, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr Rahul Singh, VP Engineering. I hope everyone had an opportunity to go through our investor deck and press release that we have uploaded on our exchange and company’s website.
A short disclaimer I would like to say before we begin the call. This call may contain some of the forward-looking statements, which are completely based upon our beliefs, opinion and expectations as of today. These statements are not a guarantee of our future performance and involve unfortunate risks and uncertainties.
With this, now I hand over the call to Mr Ankit Mehta. Over to you, sir.
Ankit Mehta — Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the earnings conference call for Q3 and nine months FY ’25. I hope this message finds you all-in great help. I have my colleague Rahul, who is our VP of Engineering with me to provide us with deeper insights into our technology and product development efforts, along with our Investor Relations partner on the call with us. I would like to extend my heartful gratitude to our investors, stakeholders and employees for their continued support to Ideaforge. Your unwavering belief in our vision of building an IP-driven technology powerhouse from India for the world keeps us firmly committed to this journey.
Year so-far has been a mixed pack for us and the tone industry. While a lot of development is happening on new use cases, products and technologies, the demand to order conversion in the first 3/4 of the year has been below industry expectations. This is majorly attributable to the National General Elections in the first part of the year and a substantial delay in the government coming up with the impending larger procurement opportunities. Most of the demand this year has been driven by the run-rate business, which continues to be in-line with our expectations at the beginning of the year so-far.
From an Indian demand standpoint, once we see the larger opportunities getting sorted, which is expected shortly, the industry will again be on-track for the projected long-term growth. To boost the run-rate of this business even more, industry-wide efforts are being made to exemplify the role of drone technology in evaluating security and governance effectiveness for both government and enterprise use cases. For example, widespread awareness is created about the coastal management program that is being serviced by our drones and the promotion of private use of geospatial data coming from drones as well, apart from satellite data in the operation by the Government of India.
So from an international business standpoint, starting from almost no opportunities outside India before this financial year, Ideaforge is tracking more than 25 opportunities globally with over a dozen opportunities being tracked in North-America and half a dozen opportunities in Africa as well. We are the only technology in consideration for some substantial and some large opportunities in these geographies, which also form a part of our L1 pipeline of INR400 plus crores now. Our international motion is also aided by our recognition of being placed third amongst the world’s top use drone manufacturers in the Drone Industry Insights Global Drone Review 2024.
We are the only Asian company to feature in the top-20. This marks the third consecutive year where we have been featured in the top-10 and made an upward move. It’s a testament to our relentless focus on innovation and indigenization and is thus elevating the Indian door industry on a global stage. The second piece of good news I wanted to share is that Switch mini UAV has obtained the coveted fit for Indian military use certificate from the Directorate General of Quality Assurance Ministry of Defense. The Switch UAE is the first and only UAE in its class to receive this certification. It is not only a testament to the level of delivery excellence at Ideaforge, but also showcases how inherently customer requirements are incorporated into our product development efforts.
We are immensely proud of our drones being part of a groundbreaking initiative with the Department of Fisheries Maharashtra, aimed at enhancing coastal surveillance, curbing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and also protecting marine ecosystems across seven coastal districts of Maharashtra with the project set to run for an initial duration of eight years. This collaboration underscores our commitment to driving impactful change through innovation and partnerships. Our efforts to prove the effectiveness of our drone as a service efforts got a huge shot in the arm when our customers were able to prevent theft on several locations wherever we are present.
This exemplifies the usefulness of both drones as a technology and its deployment on a pay-per use basis. I’m pleased to inform you that two of our next-generation products, 5 and Switch V2 are now ready for consumer customer demonstrations and will be officially unveiling them at the global flagship event in the coming month at the Aero India 2025. These platforms are designed by keeping in mind the ever-evolving nature of warfare and conflicts around the globe. They will future-proof the forces with their high-end performance, resilience to operate, even in modern electronic warfare infested environments and will feature the ability to upgrade their autonomy in the field as well.
So these next-generation platforms will be game-changers for the security forces and be it their use in peacetime patrolling, counter-insurgency, counterterrorism operations or their use in large-scale conflicts. We also developed ship-based landing capability on our Quat platform, which is ready for testing in the season now. This new capability will widen our offerings and open up seaborn opportunities for us, which we were not able to service earlier. On the development front of our larger platforms, we have completed more flight tests, including demonstrations in front of some end-users and are finalizing the design for our tactical UAV platform.
For the Middle mile logistics platform, a 500 kg maximum takeoff weight aircraft with a payload carrying capacity of 100 plus KGs to over 100 kilometers, even in high altitudes, we have progressed from the initial concept design and analysis space and are in the advanced stages of the prototype design and execution. We are confident about the progress we are making with both these platforms and our ability to meet our planned development milestones here. We will also share the first glimpse of these platforms in the Aero India 2025. We are making progress in the right direction on our drone as a service business. Our drones are deployed for enterprise safety and security, traffic management and law enforcement and urban cleanliness and monitoring use cases as well now.
We launched the flight franchisee — a franchisee-owned franchisee-operated model for the DAS business in Q2 and are in discussions with several potential partners here. As a part of our effort to create a drone innovation platform and an end-to-end ecosystem, we are extensively working with partners to integrate third-party payloads on our platform, enabling even more use cases and developing an automated workflow discovery platform, which is called Flight Cloud. We have made significant strides in developing solutions for power line infrastructure inspections, addressing the challenges in maintaining India’s 14 million kilometer circuits of power line.
Our next-generation drones are equipped with advanced imaging and LiDAR for 3D mapping and thermal sensors to detect critical issues like power line, hotspots and station enforcement. These will enable teams to receive real-time actionable insights, improving efficiency and reducing costs while ensuring uninterpreted power supply across the nation. We’ve also unlocked solutions related to the mining sector on our flight cloud platform to help customers with an end-to-end stitch solution and actionable insights in one place.
I would also like to speak about the operation, which is launched under the India’s National Geospatial Policy 2022. A pilot project which is aimed at integrating geospatial technology into key sectors like agriculture, logistics and transport. Implemented in a few sites in Uttra Pradesh, Haryana, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. It features the integrated geospatial data sharing interface to provide seamless access to geospatial data for stakeholders, fostering collaboration, innovation and informed decision-making. We’re excited to announce that we are participating as an official data provider for this initiative, supplying high-resolution drone data to support sustainable development and demonstrate practical applications of geospatial technologies, both to private and public users.
Thank you. On the international side of the business, learnings from our successful early adopter program initiative in the United States helped us conceptualize and launch a new platform, the Q6 V3 in the United States for law enforcement and public safety use cases. This will strengthen our current portfolio of Switch Uly and Nepra Pro in the North American market. The early adopter program with some of the customers is advanced stages and we expect commercial conversion from there very soon. As we move forward, I’m confident that Ideaforge will continue to lead the way in revolutionizing industries through cutting-edge technology. Our commitment to innovation, operational excellence and stakeholder value remains steadfast.
I will take you through financial highlights for the 3rd-quarter and nine months FY ’25. Our order book as of 31st December stood at approximately INR21 crores with an L1 opportunity pipeline of INR400 plus crores now as compared to INR300 crores earlier. Consolidated revenues for the current quarter stood at INR17.6 crores versus INR90.9 crores in Q3 FY ’24 and INR141 crores nine months FY ’25 as compared to INR212 crores nine months FY ’24. For the quarter, gross profit stood at INR8.1 crores with a gross profit margin of 46%. For nine months FY ’25, gross profit stood at INR45.9 crores with a gross profit margin of 32.6%. EBITDA for the quarter was minus INR12.6 crores and minus INR14.1 crores for nine months FY ’25. PAT for the quarter stood at minus INR24 crores and minus INR36.6 crores for the nine months FY ’25.
Thank you. And now I’d like to open the floor for questions-and-answers.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin with the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on their touchstone phone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. You may please press star and one to ask questions the first question is from the line of Hardik Rawat from IIFL Capital. Please go-ahead.
Hardik Rawat
Thanks for the opportunity. Good go. Ankit, the first question that I had was with regards to the guidance. Now we’ve been consistently guiding for FY ’25 to largely be at least flattish and a slight growth versus FY ’24. Is there any revision to this guidance in light of the Q3 numbers?
Ankit Mehta
Yes,, you know, we were expecting that some of these large opportunities will come much earlier in the time-frame and the expectation was that they will get into the bidding phase-in the quarter prior to this, but that as we all know has not happened. And therefore, while they will potentially be available for bidding this quarter, but closure will be difficult and execution, of course, will be even more challenging in this timeframe that is remaining right now. So yes, there will be a revision overall on that.
Hardik Rawat
So what are what are our expectations for the revenue growth for FY ’25, if you could dwell on that for FY ’26 like this year.
Ankit Mehta
Yeah, while I’m not able to give you a very specific number, but mostly the conversion that will happen in this year in the remaining quarter is going to be from the run-rate business that we get. And there are several opportunities within that. We are awaiting closure of many of those opportunities so that we can quickly build them and grab revenues as well.
Hardik Rawat
Right. So now just getting back to the L1 pipeline that we had, we were sitting on roughly INR3 billion-plus INR300 crores plus sort of an L1 pipeline at the end of 2Q, right? That’d be correct, right?
Ankit Mehta
Yeah. Yeah.
Hardik Rawat
So there it seems to be that there’s been significant delays in confirmation of those orders as well.
Ankit Mehta
Yeah, absolutely. So while the L1 pipeline has actually gone up in the last quarter, but you know, conversion has still take — is taking more time because of several challenges in the — and in the — you can say dynamics of those deals in terms of not the deal itself, but let’s say, peripheral issues around governments, etc.
Hardik Rawat
So what part of this INR300 crore-plus L1 pipeline that we had at the end of 2Q was from the Indian Army for army in general?
Ankit Mehta
So you know, a lot of this L1 pipeline is actually emanating from our international efforts right now. So there we don’t have that immediate dependency from the Indian MOD right now in this sell pipeline.
Hardik Rawat
So any approximate percentage if you could tell us like what part of this — a large part is coming from abroad, right? Is that the case?
Ankit Mehta
Yeah. All of it is coming.
Hardik Rawat
Then what is the challenge in the international geographies. I understand that if in India, there has been a government issue and delays in overall capex and that’s not particular to IDFOs for all different companies in general. But for the international orders, what is — what is leading to this delay?
Ankit Mehta
I think some of these opportunities are in Africa where — where a bunch of government changes have also happened. So there has been that as an issue as well.
Hardik Rawat
Got it. That makes sense. Another next question I had was with regards to FPV drones, there were some news headlines recently that the Indian Army is looking to acquire roughly 20,000 plus FPV drones. Do we operate in that segment or do we have any offering in this segment?
Ankit Mehta
Presently, we don’t — don’t have and we are at this point in time approaching it slightly differently. SPV drones, while are the mainstay of the way the wars are currently being fought from the point-of-view of what is happening in Ukraine and Russia, but there are several challenges and inefficiencies there. And from what we understand across board, everyone is looking at slightly more evolved solutions in that direction, which is the area that we are also investigating for our forces. And once we have the right configuration to build, we will definitely progress in the right direction based on the opportunities that are expected to come there.
Hardik Rawat
All right. And now coming to the R&D efforts and I think Raul can also touch upon this. We had two major drone platforms that you were investing in. So just a broad, you know, where do we stand with the development, how — how close are we to trials and then probably monetization of these platforms?
Ankit Mehta
Maybe I’ll request Rahul to take this question and maybe I can talk more about the commercialization part of it.
Rahul Singh
Sure. So these two platforms broadly remain on-track in terms of the development that we had planned. Both of these are significant project efforts which have started from scratch and hence not just a revision of any of the existing platforms. And the original plan itself included a reasonably long effort in concluding them. But broadly, we remain on-track. As Ankit highlighted earlier that we have taken the tactical platform to a few rounds of test flights where flight testing has started and a lot of data generation has happened and broadly the test flights remain on-track as expected in terms of the data that is generated as well as initial demonstration to the End-User to take end-user feedback on these platforms at an early-stage have also happened.
We would be getting into the next revision of the prototype development, which will get closer to what the user final configuration is going to be. The exact timelines, we will elaborate subsequently, but we should be getting into an advanced protype stage for that platform sometime in the coming financial year. For the larger logistics platform, as Ankit highlighted earlier, again, we are on-track. It’s a much larger, much more capable platform. And unlike the smaller platform where we would protype — would start by protyping and keep making iterative evolutions.
Here the design analysis phase is something which is heavier and more in-depth work and we have broadly concluded the first phase of the design and analysis and we are now entering the first prototype development phase, which should start flying and giving us data generation over the next quarter. And based on that, we will take it ahead and take it to the following prototype stage along with user involvement at every stage for more aligned product development Ankit, you want to add something?
Ankit Mehta
Yeah so yeah so absolutely. So broadly what Raul said, right, that these are substantial efforts and we are seeing good results as insofar as the design and testing phase is concerned. And in the next — we are sort of tracking the tactical project-based on the timelines with our end-customers. So because it’s a part of some development programs that we have signed-up with the End-User. So those timelines are being tracked and we are presently on-track on those timelines. And in terms of the — the Middle mile logistics platform, I think once we do the concept reveal at the this year is when we will actively get into the mode of, you know taking the conversation with end-customers forward in this direction. So we’ve largely worked on the broad concept. We’ve come up with an innovative concept that we have protected as well in form of IP and now we are going to be revealing it and then taking conversations forward for End-User feedback and potentially building to the demand as well.
Rahul Singh
So just to add to that, at that at least particularly for tactical, the opportunity is linked to not just one but multiple End-User opportunities which the End-User is actively engaged in and the End-User timelines for certain evaluation phases will happen over the next few quarters and should conclude in a final sort of approval of the project within the next 12 months or so
Hardik Rawat
Got it. That’s helpful. Any other projects that you’re working on as part of our R&D right now or these are the two major platforms that we’re working on?
Rahul Singh
So these are the largest system-level platforms that we have highlighted. But apart from that, we have had not just a hardware platform-based approach, but the drone as a service that Ankit had mentioned that we have been prototyping and piloting for a while and now getting into early commercial stages with that is also a product for us. It is both a business model product as well as technology product for us. So that continues to get a lot of our attention and we see a lot of opportunity there, both domestically and internationally possible over the next few years. Apart from that, as Ankit mentioned, we are also creating data analytics and data providing platform, which is called the Flight Cloud where GIS data could be processed as a marketplace and can be served for various government and public users. That also is a product mindset for us where hardware is not necessarily the central part of it, but the broad software platform and the ecosystem around that.
Hardik Rawat
Got it. One, two last question, if I could squeeze in. Our R&D expense for FY ’24 was roughly 18% of the top-line at about INR50 crores INR53-odd crores. What are we looking at our R&D expense for the current fiscal for FY ’25?
Ankit Mehta
I think the percentage of course will be determined at the end-of-the year, but the R&D expenses will go up slightly from last year for sure.
Hardik Rawat
So on an absolute level, there should be an increase from the INR53 odd crores we had in FY ’24, right?
Ankit Mehta
Yeah, there will be, yes.
Hardik Rawat
Got it. And lastly, coming back to the point on order confirmations, now we are one month into the 4th-quarter. Could you share any sort of order finalizations that you’ve seen from the — from the large pipeline that we have now INR400 crores plus. And could we see any major order confirmation in the balance two months that are left for the fiscal year.
Rahul Singh
So from the pipeline, there is at least one that is imminent, we will announce its moment, we have it in our hands very soon. And then apart from that, you know the run-rate business will continue to happen and we’ll have many closures from that. The large opportunities from Indian MOD, they will get into the bidding stage in this quarter. So conclusion of those will happen in the first max, second-quarter of the next year.
Hardik Rawat
So the contract that you’re bidding for, these will be the newer contract side. These are in addition to whatever INR400 crores you have?
Rahul Singh
Yeah.
Hardik Rawat
And this — sorry, but this order that you just talked about that is largely in your hand and should be awarded anytime now, what would be the size of this order or an approximate range.
Rahul Singh
You know,, I’ll be — it will be tough for me to give a range right now, but we will — we will announce it very soon.
Hardik Rawat
Got it. I understand. Thank you so much, team. Thanks, Ankit. Thanks Rahul for the clarifications. Thank you so much.
Rahul Singh
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take the next question from the line of Dipen Vaki from PhillipCapital. Please go-ahead.
Dipen Vakil
Yeah. Hi. Hi, thank you for this opportunity. So my first question is that if we understand correctly, last quarter also we had an order book of close to around INR20 crores. We have executed this in this quarter of close to around INR18 crores and we still have an order book of close to around INR20 crores. So one — so one thing I want to understand is that what have we executed in this quarter? When did we get that order? And what are the balance orders that are there in our current order book? So that was my first question.
Ankit Mehta
Sure. So INR16.8 odd crores is what was the new order booking that happened in the last quarter, which was about INR4 crores in the quarter prior to that. So essentially that saw a little bit of an increase in the last quarter from the run-rate business standpoint. And the order book we had at the beginning of last quarter was, I think, about INR20 crores but the order opening right now is about INR21 crores. So essentially, we have another INR21 crores of execution that is due, that is — some of it would have happened already and some of it is going to happen in the next within this or the next quarter mostly. And then there will be new additions to the order book as well.
Dipen Vakil
So yeah, so my question was that what is in which area are these orders from? Is it from international business, is it from domestic business? Is it from defense business?
Ankit Mehta
These are all civil — these are all civil and some defense business from India itself, run-rate business.
Dipen Vakil
Okay. Can you explain a little bit on the run-rate business, what it is and what are we looking at going ahead for because now that is for at least last couple of quarters in this quarter itself, it is now — it’s turning out to be your entire execution. So can you explain a little bit on your run-rate business?
Ankit Mehta
Yeah. So see we have two broad areas in which we operate with our end-customers. One is the area of IFR, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, which includes customers in the civil market, which implies various you know, we can say police forces, central armed police forces, that is one vector where we get a lot of opportunities that convert from and then we get a lot of opportunities converting from some government departments or from private enterprises. So many of them can also be geospatial data creators and providers or service providers. So that’s broadly the bucket where we get civil opportunities from at this point in time. And the run-rate business on the defense again happens at the — at the command and the battalion level wherever there is an immediate opportunity that needs our support and execution. And sometimes there is repeat there is order for spares and batteries and those kind of things as well.
Dipen Vakil
Got it. So now my next question is on our near-term vision. So I completely agree with your long-term vision and the long-term opportunities that live for ahead, but I’m more concerned about the near-term — near-term execution challenges which we are facing currently because of the lack of ordering. So you have mentioned that there are INR400 crores worth of orders that where you are already in the L1 stage, which may — which includes completely from international — international opportunities. So I want to come back to the local side of it as to what kind of opportunities are there in the defense from the defense standpoint and why are we facing — still facing challenges when government has already started rolling out some orders, especially in the drone side of it, because last week itself we heard that one of your competitors from has won an order from Indian Army. So where do we go about it in defense, specifically on the defense side of business for India going ahead, say, in next quarter, next couple of quarters.
Ankit Mehta
So one of the things that we don’t do is that we don’t announce every small order win. So that is the — probably the reason why it appears that other people are getting and we are not, but that’s not the case actually, we don’t have any evidence that within our categories, there is anything that has gone away. So — and there are certain categories where small procurements may be happening where we are not participating. For example, we don’t make an STV drone right now. So if there is any small procurement happening there, definitely, you know, those would be opportunities that are being spoken about, but we don’t talk about every win and that’s probably the reason why you will see that there may be a lot of news, but of course, you’ve seen that last quarter itself, we won about INR16 odd crores of new opportunity. So that we keep winning like opportunities.
Dipen Vakil
Yeah. So INR60 odd crores related to defense orders you are saying?
Ankit Mehta
No, no. So there may be some defense orders within that, but there are many civil orders as well. So I’m saying that because the number can be quite large for us, given our scale and size and presence, it’s very difficult for us to talk about each and every one of them in the market.
Dipen Vakil
So got it. So that’s what I’m my question is that in near-term, what are the contracts or what are the areas in the defense because the INR400 crore pipeline that you mentioned very on L1 are largely related to international opportunities. So again, I’m trying to understand is that what kind of opportunity is because you have said that Indian demand opportunity is there in the long-term so India is where the Indian opportunity lies and when can we expect that turning around?
Ankit Mehta
Right. So there are many opportunities, many RFPs where we have bidded, done trials where we have technically qualified as well. Those — because they are competitively bid, they don’t form of form a part of our LVN pipeline presently, right, because the financials may not have opened, etc. So that’s why they are outside the L1 pipeline. So there is a pocket of opportunities where we would have qualified technically, but they are not yet financial — they are not yet opened financially from the customers end. And then there is a — there are close to — so overall, we are tracking close to 300-odd opportunities, right, of them about 25 plus like I said are from international and rest of them are Indian opportunities that we are tracking.
Dipen Vakil
Got it. I still have few more questions, but I’ll get back to the queue. Thank you.
Ankit Mehta
Sure, sure.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ritesh Kochar from Capital. Please go-ahead.
Ritesh Kochar
Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Ankit, I want to ask you while chasing your dream of building a technology focused company, do you believe that — or do you think that somehow Force has become more-and-more inward-looking organization and in that process completely ignoring the outside world. When I say outside world, it’s mainly the customer and the potential customers because for me, it is very hard to believe that growing industry and industry are some military order or Indian government defense order not coming and the revenue dropping 70%, 80% quarter-after-quarter, it just doesn’t look right. I mean, on your business development team, marketing team, are they not able to find some technical opportunity outside of India, a customer, which are not your routine customers. So I want to ask you, do you think that while you are doing filing patents and launch innovating things and manufacturing newer drones, see, there is no point if those efforts doesn’t get converted into revenue, right? So I want to ask this inside versus outside and what is your marketing and BD team doing?
Ankit Mehta
So you know yeah. So Ritesh, I think you know.
Ritesh Kochar
My name is
Ankit Mehta
Yeah. Hi. Ritesh, I think from the standpoint of efforts, right, when we review — and we review this every day, I think one of the most important vectors for us at Ideaforge is that we want to build technology if we want to for it to be useful, right? So first of all, I want to dispel that notion that we are inward-looking and we create technology for the sake of creating technology, I think there is no other company in the country that has as many active systems in deployment and duty as we have, which implies that we don’t build technology for the sake of technology, right? Okay.
So first response is that because you know I would be very — I would be very upset myself if we are building technology that’s not useful. And yeah, all ground, you know, feedback that we have from what we have delivered is that I don’t want to sort of take it to extreme, but we’ve had comments all the way down to saying that this is one of the best technologies that we have ever received in many parts of the country. So I don’t think that there is any gap in what we believe our customers require and what we build. In fact, you know, all the certifications, et-cetera, we are getting them only after the product has been inducted and has been exploited and has been found to be satisfactory in its exploitation as well, right?
It’s now that we are receiving some of these certifications because of that background and that history. So you know, I would definitely definitely make you feel comfortable that none of what we are doing in-building is not relevant to our customer-base or not helpful to our end-customers. The business development efforts, like I said, we’ve had zero opportunity outside India to having a L1 pipeline from outside India of more than INR400 crores, even though conversion has taken more time and it is taking time because the dynamics we are realizing and discovering ourselves that even outside India, the dynamics are not that linear. Like we have challenges here. I think the nature of the beast is similar elsewhere as well is what we are realizing. And therefore, we will gain a lot of momentum once we have a much larger pace of opportunities even outside.
So that work is on and we are not leaving any stone unturned from investing behind that opportunity creation. So I would definitely say that you know, wherever we have found opportunities, we have some opportunities that are only meant for our type of product or our capability. It’s our technology, which is getting a win there. And therefore, I would be definitely, you know, telling you that I don’t think that is the challenge. It is — and we’ve been around for — we’ve been making drones for last 20 years and we’ve been around doing this for the last — for our courses almost for the last, I would say 14 plus years in terms of selling to our end-customers.
So there are vagaries of this business and you know, we haven’t let the initiatives slip in terms of you know, I don’t see anybody else also getting something dramatically out in this current environment to believe that there is a challenge in terms of how we approach the market. It is generally a issue on the system side, which we are continuously tracking and working towards. And we have seen such phases earlier. It’s not like we haven’t seen — we’ve been around for long enough to know that these are phases and they go away. And when they go away, it comes back strongly as well. I mean at least that’s our experience from our history.
Ritesh Kochar
Alright. So I mean it’s heartening to know. My second question, Ankit, is the if this is the case that the invert outward, you are managing both things, then I want to ask you, why this whole idea of drone has not taken off in our country? What are the problems? I’m assuming the performance of Ideaforce, I’m assuming the same performance for the other industry players also in this hypothesis. So do you think that this is a temporary lull or do you think that the Indian government, the Defense Department or the Indian military that is a strategic — I mean, thinking to push-back on grown usage because the first is going to be the defense is going to be.
Ankit Mehta
On the contrary, actually the — on-the-ground, the need for the technology, see, there is a big gap between the desire for procurement and plan for procurement also and execution that is the reality of this market. So I have not yet seen a dip in the number of opportunities we are needing to bid for. So I haven’t seen that yet. Now conversion is — conversion is where the challenge is because the demand is there and customer is opening demand in many segments. Some of those segments we don’t participate in. But that’s the phase we are in right now where the customer is also trying to make sure that they can use this technology in each and every vector that they can drive towards.
Now there are many industry nuances that will have to be understood deeply to sort of understand how exactly does this whole thing work, right? For example, if something goes into the make programs, then immediate RFPs don’t come out because they are expecting that technology was not there in the country, it’s going to be developed, which is a part of what we are doing in the tactical opportunity and then the developed opportunity or the developed capability will be inducted through subsequent orders, et-cetera. So there are nuances on that side. So you will see that in the phase of development, those opportunities will fructify in terms of RFPs later.
In terms of, you know, existing categories where the user has demand, there are many variables like when have they last inducted the technology and have they exploited, have they gained experience for them to again order more of the same or a minor modification from the same. So there are many nuances like that, which also have to be accounted for on-the-ground, which is what we work towards and grapple with, right? And the priorities also from a geopolitical situation sometimes evolve. So those also have to be taken into account. So I think it’s very difficult for us right now when we assess it to say that we are missing a beat here or there or the market opportunity has seen a lull.
In fact, it’s only growing. It’s just that, you know the civil business is at a very small base and it doesn’t act as each opportunity is not as large as it will be on the defense side, right? And if there is any null on the defense side, it will impact the industry heavily in the short-term. Sure. And large market becomes large. So even on the civil side, the business has grown only. It’s not come down.
Ritesh Kochar
Okay, wonderful. And lastly, I want to ask you, I met one of the — your competitor, it’s not a listed company. And I got to know that there are some 18 20 now grown manufacturers which are there. So basically, can you tell me, is it the — the competitive landscape over last two years in which there has been no orders or little bit of procurement from the Indian government. Has the competition landscape changed meaningfully and you believe that whenever this opportunity comes, then earlier, say, for example, like you were basing two or three in bidding and now it’s going to be like 10, 12, is it going to be like that scenario now? Can you confirm or deny this?
Ankit Mehta
See, my — you know our experience on-the-ground has been that we have been in even as recently as probably a quarter or two quarters prior to this — this moment. We haven’t seen in specific opportunities more than two players qualify in one opportunity, right? It’s not like that there is competition, but the credibility of the competition also is something that, see, there will be many players who will attempt, right? But getting there to the finish line is a hard problem. It’s not an easy problem because the environments our users are operating in a hard environment like they’re difficult.
So yes, if you want — if you say that are we the only ones? No, I mean that is a known fact, but are there too many of them who can build to the same performance grade or quality? I would still say the evidence is not of that nature on-ground and perfect. You know the reason why competition is good and competition helps because it’s what needs us to build better capabilities for our end-users, right? So end-users are buying capabilities, they believe that they can exploit play. But when they actually deploy technology, they also realize that they need more than what they’ve just expected because it’s like buying any other gadget, right? You buy it and then you realize, okay, maybe two more features would be helpful.
So that development effort and that technology effort goes hand-in-hand. So anybody who does not have that deep technical capability, it will be a very tough challenge for them to keep up with this cycle. It’s a very hard cycle to keep up with and we have to invest. Like I haven’t found a scenario where we can not invest behind building new capabilities and continue to be comfortable. I mean, the whole world, if you know, that technologically has moved on and is constantly evolving at a very rapid pace. So that control is going to be very important to drive the next-generation of systems that the courses will really need to use.
Ritesh Kochar
Hello,
Ankit Mehta
Yeah,
Ritesh Kochar
Yeah, all right. That’s all from my side. Thank you very much and let’s see what happens next. All right, sir.
Ankit Mehta
Thank you. Thank you, Ritesh.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mitun Ashwarth from Keva Advisors. Please go-ahead.
Mithun Ashworth
Hi, team. Obviously, the last couple of quarters been a little bit tough in terms of the revenues and order booking. I just want to take you back maybe post the listing and the kind of opportunity size that you see in India and globally? And I think you are also trying to capture some portion of the US market as well on the homeland security side. So I just want to understand in terms of the big-picture, what is the kind of size of opportunities that present themselves? And what are you doing potentially to make the business a little bit more secular so that you have some base sort of revenue and are not so dependent on these kind of order wins which are inconsistent. So just want your thoughts because I think at that point, there was an expectation or I don’t know, some sort of a guidance that you could get to INR500 crore or INR1,000 crore revenue sort of a business. And I’m sure your aspirations would be towards that. So if you could articulate that, I think that would — that would help us.
Ankit Mehta
So thanks for the question,. So I think in terms of opportunity, so let me answer the diversification question first, right? I mean, it was one of the clearly articulated strategies for us that we will have to go to the international markets and we plan to go to the international markets to pitch our products. Of that, like I mentioned earlier as well, we have — we’ve started doing that and we have started to see some results in terms of opportunities and some of them will convert very soon. So there is — there is that from diversification standpoint from a geography perspective. From a use-case point-of-view, you know, I did mention that we are continuously unlocking more-and-more use cases of our technology.
So we built very good hardware platform and that platform needs many sensors and it needs a lot of analytics to deliver end outcomes to the end-customer. So we have partnered with many third-parties to try and build more payloads that can serve different, different kind of use cases for the end-customer. And then we have also partnered with analytics providers. We are building a platform that can allow many analytics providers to help us serve our customers who can deploy the technology for their users like for example, power line inspections for example uses in mining, uses in hydrology projects, etc, etc, there are large number of use cases on the enterprise side.
So we are constantly unlocking it by creating new payloads along with our partners and ourselves as well and we are unlocking it by solving for the customers’ problem, which is the end outcome that the customer wants. And that you know each field-by-field, it keeps getting unlocked and becomes a little bit better. So that is one part of how the opportunity base is expanding as well as how we are geographically expanding and doing that work. And then of course, we are also experimenting with a new way of going to the market, which is drone as a service. And the idea is to scale that with a franchisee operated and owned model.
So that model again is something that we have started to put into the works. Insofar as done as a service is concerned for enterprise safety and security, are doing paid — paid efforts for a few customers and we are increasingly finding that it is a very effective solution. So I would say that that’s one technology and one use-case where, you know it’s actually working out very, very well for our customers. So again, those kind of inflection points are getting arrived at where the technology use-case and the scale of the opportunity are coming together where we can be more aggressive about taking it to the market and creating a larger customer-base from.
So those are the areas where efforts are going on at this point in time. And because it’s been only a few quarters, some of these strategies, given some of the fundamental challenges of how exports, for example from India take time or we have to take, you know many, many type certifications and certifications in India before we can commercialize a lot of technologies. So it takes a little bit longer than usual to get-out of the gate in some of these things. For example, in international market, every time I opened a new market, it takes us three months-to take a license that allows us to take the product and do a demonstration there.
So there are many hurdles that we have to cross. And these are all tactical hurdles, but we have created an engine that solves for it, but we have to wait for that timeline in any case, irrespective of what we are trying to do. So there are certain delays of that nature, which are very tactical, but you know, we are seeing that despite all of that, motions are in the right direction and there is — there are opportunities that we can serve and service in some form or fashion.
Mithun Ashworth
Right. I’m just trying to understand on the longer picture in terms of the size of opportunity of both locally and globally. I’m just trying to understand from your own roadmap, you’d obviously be disappointed since the listing in terms of how the revenues have manifested themselves. So I just wanted to understand what is your confidence levels of how FY ’26 or ’27 is going to pan-out?
Ankit Mehta
See, in terms of some of these opportunities going into the motions, we do expect that conversions will happen over the next few quarters. However, you know, in terms of confidence over the next few quarters, I would say, for example, in the US, there is a tectonic shift in terms of moving away from the large dependency that they had on Chinese — the Chinese ecosystem. And that’s a very large market opportunity, which where we launched our Q6, weekly platform as well. And we are going to continue to track where are those right price to — price to performance products where we can play a large role in addressing that demand over there. So there is a lot of conversation, lot of excitement and a lot of traction in that direction as well. So we are also exploring all vectors we can to gain more traction in that geography. And once some conversions happen, I think a lot of conversions will happen because we’ve started to get traction there. And that’s what we are gunning for and we’ll have some conversion soon.
Mithun Ashworth
Sure. Sure. But any kind of your own assessment in terms of could you get back to FY ’24 sort of revenues in FY ’26 or it’s going to be a little bit more slow journey of recovery.
Ankit Mehta
I think you know when it it will happen fast, definitely. I think when the conversions happen, it will happen very fast we just have to wait for those conversions to happen before we make make the projection fully. That’s the — that’s the place we are at right now.
Mithun Ashworth
Okay. Okay. Let me put it this way. In FY ’24, you would have had maybe INR200 crores of visibility. Do you have now INR600 crores of visibility, something like that, if we could kind of understand that opportunity set that it is manifortly larger than what it was.
Ankit Mehta
Definitely, definitely. I think the opportunity has grown. Opportunity has grown in terms of how many — how many opportunities are clear to us that we’ll get you know that will get bidded once they become — once they become available for bidding. So the challenge, if at all is when they become available for bidding more than anything else.
Mithun Ashworth
And just lastly, some conversations I was having with other people in the defense space were mentioning that the government is very keen on implementing drone technology. And then is one of the key companies that the government looks to in terms of while making a policy. I just wanted to understand how closely you work with the government on this.
Ankit Mehta
Absolutely. I think we are quite plugged in because first of all, I think the depth that we have in terms of understanding this technology and what’s possible in the short-term and what’s possible in the medium to long-term is definitely very-high and we’ve always been involved in various policy initiatives. I’m also the presently the co-chair of the Fiki Committee on Drones. So we are — we are consulted as a committee as well and I am directly involved in many conversations on that side.
Mithun Ashworth
Sure. Thanks.
Ankit Mehta
On that. In fact, in a way, we motivated the PLI a few years back for the first time. So yeah, I mean we are quite involved as a group.
Mithun Ashworth
Right. And do you think this — is it because of lack of funds or lack of implementation in some of the state governments, I think was hearing Maharashtra is also a large opportunity. So just wanted to understand, do you think maybe post the budget lot of decision-making will come to.
Ankit Mehta
Yeah, states and all I mean see, there are opportunities I know that the teams are working on. However you know our, our states — there are some states who are looking at statewide deployments and there are some who aren’t. But I would say that if there were only two states earlier looking at state-level deployments of this technology, then I would say now there are maybe five states who are doing that doing but you know conversion cycles being government and being in the state, they remain of a similar nature if the opportunity size is large.
Mithun Ashworth
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jaysh Parik from JMP Capital. Please go-ahead.
Jayesh Parekh
Hi, good morning. Goodbye. My question is slightly different and I would request you to please take it in a very right spirit. We came for IPO in July 2023, is INR240 crores came to company and about INR327 crores has gone to offer for-sale to those shareholders. At that point in time, various electronic media interaction took place with the management and promoter. And from then onwards, if you see the 3rd-quarter, June 2024, there is a small profit of INR2 crores. So my Mike — and then INR12 crores loss and then INR20 crores loss, so my humble request to you that even management team could not predict the 3rd-quarter at the time of IPO or offer. So how do we believe in-spite of giving due respect to all your technological working, all your efforts, you know, in-spite of everything, how do we believe what you are telling us now?
Ankit Mehta
So,, the only thing I can add to what I’ve said so-far is that — and I’ve said that earlier as well that we’ve seen — we’ve seen such cycles. It is — it is when we deal with, you know, several government customers, if things do become a bit unpredictable from the point-of-view of predicting when the things will close or when they will start. However, I think it’s my experience that once — once the government has decided that they want to do something, it does happen sooner or later and we end-up getting benefit of that. Now the main challenge that we face is that can we say that it will happen this specific timeline, those are some of the gaps that are not easy to address, but we are trying our level best to become better at it and we are constantly trying to improve as much as we can in terms of what we can do in that direction. Definitely, we are looking to induct the technology and I haven’t seen that intent gap so-far.
Jayesh Parekh
So Ankit by you are collecting INR600 crore-plus from the public and 3rd-quarter you are giving a profit of INR2 crore rupees you are not able to predict the 3rd-quarter, 4th-quarter where there is a loss of INR20 crores. No, I feel it’s an issue of corporate governance. Because if you see — if you replay all your electronic media interview, you never get an indication that third quarters onwards, we will have a even management can’t predict third quarters. I’m sorry, but I’m not able to digest this. I thought 3rd-quarter is a one-off, but then 4th-quarter INR12 crores, then fifth quarter INR20 crores. So I don’t know what’s happening, Mr. How do we believe all your answer at this point in time?
Operator
MR. Parik, I’m sorry to interrupt. Sir, can we take this offline because we are running short of time right now?
Jayesh Parekh
No, because you are giving first and second the person on the line, you gave them 2025 minutes.
Operator
I’m sorry to interrupt you, sir, but we are running short of time.
Jayesh Parekh
Thank you. I understand why you are doing this. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, this would be our last question and I would like to hand the conference over to Mr Ankit Mehta for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Ankit Mehta
Thank you. Thank you. So I think just to sort of briefly address the last question, I think it is very important to note that you know the orders that we may have in-hand may predict a certain outcome. And then we are always looking at closing more things in the interim. And if there is a slippage in that closing is why the variations will happen in terms of what the outcomes are. And that’s one of the reasons why we don’t specifically give a concrete guidance because of moving the industry challenges and the environment that we operate in. And therefore, I would definitely sort of suggest that as long as you know we are continuing to govern the — the method that we know works for our business. You know, I would request that we take that into account when thinking about this.
Once again, I would like to thank all of you to keep faith in Idea and your continued support. We have been working with drones, like I said, for the last two decades now and are very confident in the potential of the technology and the disproportionate change that it is able to bring to the sectors that we touch. The current headwinds are temporary and the whole drone industry will soar to new heights very soon. We hope to make that journey together with all of you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, members of the management. On behalf of Idea Forge Technology Limited, that concludes this conference. We thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.