Skylark Labs and ideaForge Ink $35M Multi-Year Deal to Build World's Largest AI-Powered Drone Ecosystem

NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- 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.

Skylark Labs will deliver real-time detection, tracking, and recognition across ideaForge drones deployed in both commercial and defense environments.

"This contract marks a historic milestone for Skylark Labs," said Dr. Amarjot Singh, Founder & CEO of Skylark Labs. "Deploying AI licenses across ideaForge's extensively deployed fleet proves that our adaptive AI is no longer just an innovation—it is the core operating system for the world's fastest-growing drone fleets. This is not just a partnership, it is a market-shaping alliance."

Mr. Ankit Mehta, CEO of ideaForge Technology Limited, commented: "Skylark Labs has been a remarkable partner since we began our collaboration in May 2024. We've seen strong market validation of their AI technology, and this enterprise collaboration across various sectors, such as oil & gas, mining, and disaster management, allows us to scale these AI-integrated solutions across commercial sectors together."

A Partnership of Complementary Strengths

The agreement brings together Skylark's unique on-edge self-learning AI with ideaForge's proven drone platforms. Skylark's technology, based on its brain-inspired hybrid AI architecture, enables drones to continuously learn on-device, adapt rapidly to new scenarios, and significantly reduce both false positives and missed detections.

ideaForge, meanwhile, has established itself as India's drone market leader, with nearly 50% market share and the country's largest operational deployment of UAVs. Its platforms are recognized for endurance, reliability, and mission-readiness across defense, industrial, and public safety environments.

Together, the two companies create a system where ideaForge provides the trusted aerial platform and Skylark provides the intelligence that evolves at the edge.

Solving Critical Global Challenges

The integrated solution is expected to address some of the world's most urgent challenges. In defense and border security, the AI-powered drones will provide smarter surveillance and persistent monitoring over vast, complex frontiers. In agriculture, they will enable precision farming through real-time crop analytics, helping farmers manage resources more efficiently. For infrastructure, the systems will automate inspections of roads, railways, and energy pipelines, cutting costs while improving safety and reliability. And in public safety and disaster response, the drones will deliver rapid threat detection and situational awareness to first responders.

With more than 13,000 drones already registered in India, and government policies actively promoting adoption, the partnership offers a launchpad for scaling AI-native drone ecosystems worldwide.

Global Ecosystem Advantage

Industry analysts note that the agreement delivers strategic advantages for both companies. For Skylark Labs, the deal represents entry into one of the world's fastest-growing drone ecosystems, validating its on-edge self-learning AI in demanding, real-world conditions. For ideaForge, the integration of adaptive intelligence strengthens its global competitiveness by transforming drones into platforms that continuously evolve in the field.

Together, Skylark and ideaForge are creating a bridge between the U.S. innovation ecosystem and India's manufacturing and deployment ecosystem. By combining unique strengths from both markets, the partnership is positioned to tackle critical applications backed by both significant demand and substantial capital investment.

About Skylark Labs

Skylark Labs is a Bay Area–based artificial intelligence company building the world's first brain-inspired operating system for physical machines. Founded in 2021 by Dr. Amarjot Singh (PhD, Cambridge; Postdoc, Stanford DARPA L2M), Skylark develops on-edge self-learning AI that evolves in real time, without retraining or cloud dependence.

Skylark Labs is building the AI brain that creates digital lifeforms to replace humans in dangerous tasks across defense, public safety, mobility, and critical infrastructure. At the core is our proprietary brain-inspired hybrid architecture, modeled on the brain's cortices, that learns across vision, audio, and sensory inputs and adapts incrementally in the field. Unlike brittle, data-hungry models, Skylark adapts in real time and scales safely across fleets.

Skylark's product portfolio—including the Scout AI Tower, Tracer AI Vehicle, Sentinel AI Camera, Synapse Edge AI Box, and AI Drones—is integrated with its Kepler™ monitoring platform, delivering end-to-end solutions for defense, public safety, mobility, and critical infrastructure.

About ideaForge Technology Limited

ideaForge is a pioneer and the pre-eminent market leader in the Indian unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) industry. With a mission-first approach, we deliver cutting-edge drones engineered for unmatched performance, autonomy, and reliability, redefining possibilities in security, mapping, surveillance, and disaster response applications across militaries and enterprises.

With India's largest operational deployment of indigenous UAVs, an ideaForge drone takes off every 3 minutes, enabling over 7,25,000 successful flights. Ranked 3rd globally among the world's Top Dual-Use Drone Manufacturers by Drone Industry Insights (DRONEII) Global Drone Review 2024, ideaForge continues to set benchmarks in innovation and excellence.

Since pioneering India's first VTOL UAVs in 2009, we have expanded with advanced R&D and manufacturing hubs in Navi Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and the USA, driving the development of indigenously designed and built solutions. Backed by marquee investors, including Qualcomm, Infosys, Celesta Capital, Florintree, EXIM Bank, and Infina Finance, ideaForge is at the forefront of revolutionizing unmanned systems.

Discover more: www.skylarklabs.ai

Media Contact: 
Amarjot Singh
amarjot@skylarklabs.ai 

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SOURCE Skylark Labs, Inc.