Garuda Aerospace Unlisted Shares — Financials, Peer Comparison, and How to Buy

Garuda Aerospace comes up constantly in unlisted-share searches. Here's what its actual filed financials show, how it stacks up against its one genuine listed peer, and the mechanics of buying — without a single price prediction.

What Garuda Aerospace Actually Does

Garuda Aerospace is a Chennai-based drone technology company, founded in 2015 by Agnishwar Jayaprakash and Rithika Mohan, starting as a college project with an initial investment of roughly ₹50 lakh. It operates an integrated model across drone hardware manufacturing, Drone-as-a-Service (DaaS), pilot training, and maintenance support, serving government bodies, defence establishments, and clients in agriculture, mapping, mining, and industrial inspection. As of recent reporting, the company operates a fleet of several hundred drones and pilots across dozens of cities.

Financials — What's Actually Filed, Not What's Claimed

Unlike fully listed companies, Garuda Aerospace doesn't have continuous public disclosure obligations — but it does file annual financial statements with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), which business publications like Entrackr and Inc42 report on directly. Here's what those filings show:

Source: RoC filings as reported by Entrackr (August 2025). Note: a small number of other data-aggregation sources report slightly different FY25 revenue figures (some cite ~₹124.8 crore) — this kind of minor variance across secondary sources is common even for RoC-sourced private company data, so treat the RoC-filed figure as the primary reference point.

The growth rate did slow meaningfully between FY24 and FY25 (from +134% to +7.3%) — worth noting plainly rather than only highlighting the multi-year growth story, since a growth deceleration this sharp is itself a relevant data point for anyone evaluating the company.

Funding History

Garuda Aerospace has raised approximately $44-49.5 million across multiple funding rounds (reported figures vary slightly by data source) from investors including Venture Catalysts, Ocgrow Ventures, We Founder Circle, Silver Swan Capital, Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office, and cricketer MS Dhoni, among others. Its most recent reported Series B round (April 2025) valued the company at approximately $250 million (~₹2,150 crore). Some later reporting cites a subsequent valuation closer to $270 million. As with revenue figures, private-company valuation numbers reported by different outlets can vary — these are the ranges reported, not a single confirmed figure.

Reported IPO Plans

Multiple reports through 2026 indicate Garuda Aerospace has been preparing for a public listing, with figures discussed including a raise of roughly ₹1,000 crore (split between a fresh issue and an offer-for-sale) at a targeted valuation in the ₹4,000-5,000 crore range, and a possible listing timeline discussed for later in 2026. None of this is a confirmed, regulator-cleared timeline as of this writing — a formal IPO requires SEBI clearance and a filed prospectus, neither of which is the same as reported management intent. Treat this as a company-stated plan under discussion, not a scheduled event.

The One Genuine Listed Peer: ideaForge

Almost every other "unlisted shares" comparison in this space isn't a real peer comparison because it's comparing one unlisted company to another — neither has audited, continuously disclosed financials. ideaForge Technology (NSE: IDEAFORGE) is different: it's an actual listed Indian drone company, incorporated in 2007, and India's market leader in unmanned aircraft systems. That makes it the one legitimate benchmark available for evaluating Garuda's numbers in context.

What this comparison actually shows: Garuda's smaller, steadier revenue base has avoided the sharp swings ideaForge experienced from concentrated defence-procurement dependency — but ideaForge's status as a listed company means every one of its numbers is independently auditable and continuously disclosed, which Garuda's aren't. Bigger and more volatile with full transparency is a genuinely different risk profile than smaller and steadier with limited disclosure — neither is automatically "better," and this is worth sitting with rather than resolving into a simple verdict.

Other domestic competitors mentioned in industry coverage include Aarav Unmanned Systems and Throttle Aerospace Systems, though neither currently has the level of public financial reporting that would allow a similarly detailed comparison.

How the Buying Process Actually Works

1. Choose a broker/platform dealing in unlisted shares, and verify they disclose plainly that they are not a SEBI-recognised exchange for these OTC transactions
2. Complete KYC — PAN card, a cancelled cheque or bank proof, and a Client Master Report (CMR) from your existing demat account
3. Confirm lot size — unlisted shares trade in defined lots that vary by broker, not arbitrary quantities
4. Transfer funds via bank channel only — RTGS/NEFT/IMPS; any suggestion of cash payment is a red flag
5. Shares are transferred to your demat account, typically within 24-48 hours of payment confirmation

On pricing specifically: unlisted share prices are quoted independently by each broker with no central, exchange-verified feed, and quotes can vary meaningfully between platforms at the same time. This is a structural feature of how the unlisted market works, not something specific to this company. Get a quote directly from a broker you're actually working with, and treat it as a negotiation starting point rather than a verified market price.

Risks Specific to This Investment

• Revenue growth has decelerated sharply — from +134% to +7.3% year-over-year most recently, which changes the growth narrative meaningfully
• No confirmed IPO timeline — reported plans are not the same as a SEBI-cleared listing schedule
• Limited disclosure — annual RoC filings only, none of the continuous disclosure a listed peer like ideaForge provides
• Illiquidity — exiting requires finding a private buyer, on an uncertain timeline
• Sector exposure — drone demand is tied to defence procurement cycles and policy, both outside company control, as ideaForge's own volatility illustrates