Aditum co-leads $10M pre-IPO in Garuda Aerospace with Motherson

Aditum has co-led a $10 million pre-IPO round in Garuda Aerospace. The Dubai-based investment manager joined the Motherson family office in the round for the Indian drone maker, closed in October 2026 at a pre-money valuation of $320 million. Garuda Aerospace, founded in 2015 in Chennai by Jayaprakash and Rithika Mohan, develops drones for defense, agriculture, surveillance and logistics. The company also offers drone-as-a-service solutions and remote pilot training. The company confidentially filed its IPO papers in April 2026 and received the market regulator’s observations on 5 August. It is targeting a listing in the first quarter of 2027. The new capital is expected to support AI-driven innovation, local technology development, manufacturing and expansion across defense, infrastructure, logistics, agriculture and industrial applications. Aditum Investment Management was founded in 2018 in the Dubai International Financial Centre. It provides conventional and Shariah-compliant investment solutions to clients in the Middle East. Aditum said it helped lead the round. The company has not published the exact amount contributed by Aditum or by the Motherson family office. Those details would show the split of the approximately $10 million. Garuda has not published the post-money valuation or the equity stake acquired by the new investors. The company has not published the expected use of proceeds in more detail or any milestones attached to the funding. For institutional investors the practical change is a pre-IPO equity position in an Indian drone company that has already filed for listing. The value depends on whether Garuda completes its IPO in the first quarter of 2027 at or above the $320 million pre-money valuation and whether the capital supports the stated expansion plans. The round is framed as positioning ahead of the public offering and does not include any announced secondary sale or partial exit by existing shareholders. Other Gulf investors have also participated in Indian technology rounds ahead of listings. Aditum pairs a co-lead role with a family office investor and a valuation of $320 million. The companies have not published a comparison of this round with other pre-IPO investments by UAE managers in Indian aerospace or drone companies or the number of previous cross-border deals Aditum has completed. The announcement does not list the specific products or contracts that will be funded with the new capital or the timeline for deployment. Those details would show the operational starting points. Without them the investment remains a description of a pre-IPO round and a valuation rather than a fully specified capital allocation. If Garuda Aerospace publish the deployment of the $10 million and progress toward the 2027 IPO within the next six months, the round has a measurable follow-through. If the next update is only a restatement of the investment, the change for the market remains the same as the initial announcement. The figures missing are the investor split and the post-money valuation. Between May 2022 and June 2025 Garuda had previously raised about $31 million from other investors. For the financial year 2025 the company reported about INR 118 crore in operating income and about INR 17 crore in profit after tax. The pre-IPO round is one element in the company’s preparation for a public listing and does not include any announced change in control or board composition.