When Jayant Khatri and Sourya Choudhury started Apollyon Dynamics in May 2025, the focus of the Hyderabad-based defencetech startup was building drones. Its early portfolio included trainer, endurance, multirole, and FPV systems, with the company selling drones worth more than Rs 1.5 crore last year.
But foresight prevails over immediate success. Anticipating saturation in the market, Apollyon has now pivoted.
“We have stopped building regular drones. Instead, we have completely shifted towards making higher value products,” says Khatri, Co-founder and CEO of Apollyon Dynamics.
The founder says the conventional drone market had become too crowded, with limited room for differentiation. “It’s basically a race to the bottom now. People are just assembling stuff. That included us as well. There’s not a lot of value addition,” he says.
The startup’s current portfolio has been rebuilt around three core products: Nightshade, Ahuti Mk II, and Project Piranha.
Apollyon now has around 20 full-time employees, two manufacturing labs, and an office in Hyderabad.
The new defencetech portfolio
Khatri says Nightshade is a jet-powered platform that can be configured as a target drone, decoy, or loitering munition. The company has already conducted multiple tests. “We were the first company in India to launch it from top of a car, a jet-powered system,” he says.
The startup plans to begin supplying pilot batches of the target-drone variant to the Indian Army by December, while trials of the loitering-munition version are expected to begin next year.
Nightshade's three configurations are designed for different battlefield roles. The target-drone variant is intended to simulate threats during air-defence training, while its decoys can help identify enemy radar positions. The loitering-munition variant combines a jet-powered platform with components typically associated with more expensive missile systems.
Khatri says that Apollyon has also repurposed Ahuti, its earlier flagship drone, into an interceptor.
“After several iterations, it has reached a top speed of 498 kmph, making it the fastest multirotor drone in India. The India Book of Records has certified this,” shares the CEO, adding that the platform is part of a Make II programme (a special system used by the Indian army to build military hardware) and is being developed with defence partners.
Project Piranha expands Apollyon's ambitions beyond aerial systems. The company hasn’t revealed much about it, only that it is a marine-based unmanned system.
“We wanted to make a family of products, a family of unmanned systems, and we don’t want to be just known as a UAV-making company,” Khatri says. “We want to be a proper defencetech company with multiple products in our portfolio.”
The evolving industry of military tech
Apollyon has also stopped selling its mobile drone lab and is instead integrating its systems into command-centre products with companies like the Noida-based Raphe mPhibr and Hyderabad-based Dhruva Space in a collaborative effort. Raphe and Dhruva Space are also customers of Apollyon; they buy Ahuti interceptors.
In June 2026, the startup had conducted a pre-seed round raising $480,000 led by Naandi Ventures. The startup is now looking to raise $5 million through a seed round within the next six months.
Started as a drone-making student startup, Apollyon’s ambition is now considerably larger: developing cruise-missile-class systems capable of carrying thousands of kilograms and travelling at least Mach 1 by 2030. M R M Babu, who led DRDO’s Agni-V missile programme, has joined as an advisor to help with hiring, programme planning and fund allocation.
For 21-year-old Khatri, collaboration will be important as Indian defence companies become larger. “If we want to survive, we can’t do it alone,” he says. “Others have realised that too and have become a lot more collaborative. It’s a good thing for the long term.”
Apollyon Dynamics is part of YourStory’s Tech30 cohort—a showcase of India’s most promising startups of 2026, unveiled at TechSparks Bengaluru.
Edited by Teja Lele