Florintree leads Rs 175 cr funding in defence tech startup Tonbo

Defence technology startup Tonbo has raised Rs 175 crore in a Series D round of funding from Florintree Advisors and EXIM Bank ahead of its planned initial public offering. The pre-IPO round valued the Bengaluru-based company at ‘1,500 crore.

Founded in 2012, Tonbo had previously raised more than Rs 300 crore from other investors including Artiman, Qualcomm, Celesta, Edelweiss, and HBL Engineering.

Inspired by the dragonfly, which has a 95% success rate while hunting due to superior visual capabilities, Tonbo is the brainchild of three Indian entrepreneurs-Arvind Lakshmikumar, a NASA/DARPA fellow and program director for international military and scientific programmes across the US, Europe and India; Ankit Kumar, a former director, applied vision at Sarnoff; and Cecilia D’Souza, the former financial controller for Sarnoff’s international operations. The trio collectively own about 20% of Tonbo.

Tonbo, which means dragonfly in Japanese, is currently a leading supplier of vision equipment in the global security and defence market including India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Air Force. It offers a range of military equipment including helmet-mounted night vision goggles, thermal weapon sights, and solutions for aerial reconnaissance missions.

“Dragonflies are nature’s ultimate aerial predators, possessing an extraordinary combination of vision, agility, and endurance that makes them a powerful inspiration for advanced imaging and flight technology,” said Lakshmikumar.

Spun out of Sarnoff Corporation, a New Jersey-based vision, video and semiconductor company and Stanford Research International, Tonbo has 250 employees. Its technology and designs for sensing, understanding and control are inspired by nature’s design of the dragonfly. “We believe that through the design of these biomimetic imaging and control systems, our products can revolutionize surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting for the next generation of warfare,” Aravind told ET. Tonbo Imaging designs cutting-edge sensing and processing systems that enhance situational awareness, targeting precision, and autonomous battlefield operations.