On Friday, ideaForge Technology, a 2007-founded drone manufacturer, made its debut at Dalal Street, with its shares being listed at a premium of 93.45% to its issue price.

It was listed at INR 1,305.10 per share at the BSE and INR 1,300 per share at the National Stock Exchange. This was an impressive jump on the price band of INR 638 to INR 672 offered by the drone manufacturers at the time of opening its initial public offering. The Mumbai-based company opened its IPO for subscription on June 26th and closed it on June 29th.

At BSE, it opened at INR 1305.10, with the highest share going at INR 1344.00 and the lowest being INR 1257.80. At the time of writing this article, its shares were at INR 1295.50. ideaForge’s m-cap sits at INR 5,398.43 crore. Later, BSE reported that its shares would be listed and admitted to dealings on the Exchange in the list of “B” Group Securities.

The equity shares of the drone maker were issued at a face value of INR 10 with a fresh issue of INR 240 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of 4,869,712 shares. The Ankit Mehta-Ashish Bhat-Rahul Singh Company aimed to raise between INR 550.69 crore and INR 567.24 crore with its IPO.

Meanwhile, at NSE, its shares opened at INR 1,300, with the highest touching INR 1,343.95 and the lowest touching INR 1,260.00. At the time of publishing, its shares were at INR 1,297.00, with m-cap being 5,404.6 crore. By 3 in the afternoon, ideaForge had a total trade volume of 90,22,876 at NSE. The shares closed at INR 1,294.95 at NSE.

According to BSE, its IPO was oversubscribed by 3.69 times, with non-institutional investors’ portion being oversubscribed by 5.13 times. The IPO was oversubscribed by 50.30 times on the final day. However, the IPO saw minimal interest from qualified institutional buyers, with only 34,760 bids against 25,28,596 shares.

Retail investors’ portion saw an oversubscription of 12.48 times, and employee shares were oversubscribed by 8.47 times.

The raised amount will be utilized towards various purposes, including repayment of existing debt, fulfilling operational capital requirements, and driving investments in product development and general corporate objectives.

IIFL Securities and JM Financial were the book-running lead managers for the IPO, with Link Intime India being the IPO registrar.

A journey of 16 years and counting

A leader in the Indian Unmanned Aircraft Systems (“UAS”) market, ideaForge dominates the market having a market share of 50 per cent in FY22. Its products include Switch UAV, Netra V4 UAV, Ninja UAV, Q4i UAV, RYNO UAV, and Q6 UAV.

Its drones are used for mapping and surveying and security and surveillance. According to its Special Purpose Statement dated March 31, 2022, ideaForge had a turnover of over INR 161 crore.

It raised its Series A round worth USD 10 million in 2016 with Series B worth USD 20 million last year. ideaForge also raised a Venture Round last month worth INR 60 crore.