ideaForge Technology IPO to kick off from June 26, price band fixed at Rs 638-672

The initial public offering (IPO) of ideaForge Technology will kick off for subscription on Monday next week (June 26) as the company has announced to sell its shares in the fixed price band of Rs 638-672. The three-day stake sale will conclude on Thursday June 29 as the markets will observe a holiday on Wednesday, June 28.

Incorporated in 2007, ideaForge Technology is engaged in the business of manufacturing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for mapping, security and surveillance. These drones are capable of a wide range of mining area planning, and mapping applications. ideaForge UAVs help construction and real estate boost their operations.

The company is eyeing to raise a little more than Rs 566 crore from its initial stake sale, which includes issuance of fresh equity shares worth Rs 240 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of 4,869,712 equity shares amounting to Rs 326.44 crore by promoters and existing shareholders.

Promoter Ashish Bhatt, along with other shareholders including Amarpreet Singh, Nambirajan Seshadri, Naresh Malhotra, Sujata Vemunri, Sundararajan K Pandalgudi, A&E Investment LLC, Agarwal Trademart, Celesta Capital II Mauritius, Celesta Capital II-B Mauritius, Export Import Bank of India, Indusage Technology Venture Fund I and Qualcomm Asia Pacific will participate in OFS.

The company also undertook a pre-IPO placement of 8,92.857 equity shares at a price of Rs 672 apiece amounting to Rs 60 crore. This has resulted in the reduction in size of fresh issue, which was said at Rs 300 crore earlier. Investors can make a bid of a minimum of 22 equity shares and its multiples thereafter.

ideaForge Technology has reserved 13,112 shares in the public issue for its employees, who will get a discount of Rs 32 apiece for the issue. Not more than 75 per cent of the net offer is reserved for qualified institutional bidders (QIBs), while non-institutional investors will get 15 per cent of the offer. Retail bidders will be allocated with the remaining 10 per cent of the offer.

Mumbai-based ideaForge has been ranked seventh globally in the dual-use category (civil and defense) drone manufacturers as per the report published by Drone Industry Insights in December 2022, while it is the largest in the country. It is backed by marquee investors such as Infosys, Qualcomm, Celesta, Florintree, EXIM Bank and Indusage Technology Venture among others.

Net proceeds from the fresh issue will be utilized towards repayment or prepayment of certain debt availed by the company; funding working capital requirements; investment in product development; and general corporate purposes.

JM Financial and IIFL Securities are the book-running lead managers to the issue, while Link InTime India has been appointed as the registrar to the issue. Shares of ideaForge Technology will be listed on both BSE and NSE, which is likely to be scheduled on Friday, July 7.