ideaForge Technology nearly doubles investors' wealth on market debut

ideaForge Technology — a drone manufacturer incubated at IIT Bombay – made a stellar debut on the exchanges on Friday. After rising 100 per cent in intraday trade, the Qualcomm-backed company’s shares finished at Rs 1,297 apiece, up 93 per cent over the issue price of Rs 672. 

The listing – the best in more than 20 months — followed a highly successful Rs 567 crore IPO, which got lapped up more than 100 times. ideaForge was founded by three IIT-Bombay students — Ankit Mehta, Rahul Singh, and Ashish Bhat — who developed India’s first quadrotor drone to enter a college fest in 2004. The drone developed by the company was featured in the Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots in 2009.

Since then, its products have been used for search and rescue activities in earthquakes, to deliver intelligence during terror attacks, and for surveillance by the Army. At Friday’s close, the drone maker was valued at Rs 5,400 crore. According to the prospectus, the average acquisition cost for VC investors Indusage, Celesta, and Indusage, and semiconductor major Qualcomm is less than Rs 100 per share.