Skylark Labs, a US-based artificial intelligence company, today announced a landmark $35 million, five-year enterprise software licensing agreement with ideaForge Technology Limited, India’s market-leading drone technology company. The deal significantly expands the partnership first announced in May 2024 and positions the two companies at the center of a rapidly growing market projected to reach $4.8 billion by 2030.
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What Makes This Partnership Unique?
Skylark Labs, a fast-growing Bay Area AI company, brings their adaptive self-learning AI technology to ideaForge’s proven drone platforms. The result is a blend of brain-inspired artificial intelligence and rugged aerial engineering that can handle some of the world’s toughest surveillance, mapping, and disaster-response jobs.
Dr. Amarjot Singh, Founder and CEO of Skylark Labs, calls the deal a “market-shaping alliance.” For Skylark, this is a major milestone, showing their edge AI can now operate reliably across the world’s largest and fastest-growing drone fleets. For ideaForge, CEO Ankit Mehta highlights the ability to scale AI-driven solutions for sectors like oil and gas, mining, and public safety.
Leaders from Skylark Labs and ideaForge sign a $35M, five-year partnership agreement to scale AI-powered drone operations
The Tech Behind Smarter Drones
At the heart of the system is on-edge self-learning AI, which means drones do not need to rely on cloud servers to learn and improve. Skylark’s hybrid architecture enables devices to learn, adapt, and update in real time, reducing false positives and missed detections. This “AI brain” can understand vision, audio, and other sensors, making the drones more precise and reliable as they operate in tough and changing environments.
Combined with ideaForge’s mission-ready drones, which have nearly 50 percent market share in India and largest operational deployment, the partnership creates a platform where hardware and intelligence evolve together. An ideaForge drone takes off every three minutes, with over 7,25,000 flights logged, the largest in India and ranked third globally among dual-use drone manufacturers.
Key Benefits of Brain-Inspired AI for Drones
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Continuous Real-Time Learning: Drones can adapt instantly to new scenarios, weather, or mission needs.
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Reduced Errors: Fewer false positives mean better accuracy in detection and monitoring.
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Wide Sector Coverage: Solutions go beyond defense to agriculture, infrastructure, and disaster management.
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Scalable, Secure, and Autonomous: Technology scales across large fleets, always improving without additional cloud reliance.
