IISc-incubated startup Yaanendriya raises Rs 15 crore for indigenous drone navigation

Deeptech venture Yaanendriya has raised Rs 15 crore from Piper Serica to build homegrown navigation and sensing systems, targeting critical supply dependencies in India’s fast-expanding drone and defence sectors.

Incubated at ARTPARK at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, the startup develops the underlying hardware and software that guide unmanned platforms. While domestic assembly of drones and robotics has grown rapidly under national manufacturing initiatives, many of the core components that handle positioning, sensing, and flight control remain heavily reliant on overseas suppliers. Yaanendriya was set up in 2023 specifically to plug that gap.

What Yaanendriya builds

The company designs products across three primary hardware and software layers:

• Syncore: Flight and navigation controllers, including the compact Syncore Nano, built for drones, ground robotics, and embedded autonomous vehicles.
• YPS GNSS: Positioning systems tapping global navigation satellite networks.
• YDXM: Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) and Attitude and Heading Reference Systems (AHRS) for motion tracking.

Co-founded by Vamshi Bharadwaj M V alongside Vyshak Y, Vijay HP, and Aravind Thumbur, the company has grown to an 18-member engineering team focused on embedded hardware, firmware, mechanical systems, and algorithms. It currently supplies more than 20 commercial and defence clients across precision robotics and aerial platforms.

Advancing indigenous defence autonomy

The new capital will support deployment of tactical-grade inertial navigation systems designed to function accurately even in contested operational environments where satellite signals are jammed, spoofed, or otherwise unavailable.

Bharadwaj said the fresh investment is focused on moving laboratory engineering into high-reliability field deployments, with plans to build deeper intellectual property inside India rather than relying on imported modules.

Looking further ahead, Yaanendriya intends to design its own indigenous micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers and gyroscopes. Developing homegrown sensor silicon and fabricating it through specialist foundries will allow the startup to control the full navigation stack from the microchip level upward. The team expects to pursue its next funding round in the second quarter of the 2027–28 financial year to take those custom semiconductor designs into global production.