iCreate Drone Challenge 2025 Launched to Set New Global Benchmarks in Drone Innovation
iCreate (International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology), India’s leading incubator for tech-innovation startups, today announced the launch of the iCreate Drone Challenge 2025 – the nation’s first-of-its-kind, large-scale initiative to accelerate drone innovation.
iCreate Drone Challenge 2025 Launched to Set New Global Benchmarks
iCreate has launched the iCreate Drone Challenge 2025, a large-scale national initiative designed to accelerate drone innovation and strengthen India’s position as a global drone technology hub.
The challenge focuses on advancing drone speed, payload, endurance and critical component development. It provides innovators with a national platform, regional qualifier rounds, component showcases and access to mentorship from national and international experts.
Two Tracks for Drone Innovation
The iCreate Drone Challenge 2025 features two tracks focused on both drone performance and indigenous technology development.
Track 01: Aerial Excellence
The Aerial Excellence track challenges innovators to push the limits of drone performance across three high-impact themes:
The Velocity Sprint: Fastest drone
The Power Lift: Highest payload-to-weight ratio
The Aether Marathon: Longest flight time
Track 02: Component Indigenisation
The Component Indigenisation track focuses on developing critical drone technologies to reduce import dependence and strengthen India's indigenous drone supply chain.
Propulsion and power systems
Energy systems
Avionics and autonomy
Sensors and payloads
Materials and structures
Thrust-vectoring systems
Supporting India’s Drone Innovation Ecosystem
Selected startups and innovators will have access to a INR 2 crore funding pool along with a fully sponsored residential prototype acceleration programme at iCreate.
Participants will also benefit from state-of-the-art laboratories, software credits, rapid prototyping facilities, component sourcing support, expert mentorship and industry connections.
Setting New Global Benchmarks
The challenge is designed to set new global standards in drone performance, efficiency, affordability and resilience.
By focusing on both high-performance aerial systems and critical component indigenisation, the initiative aims to reduce import dependence and strengthen India's capabilities across the drone technology value chain.
The challenge supports India's vision of becoming a global drone hub by 2030.
Industry and Ecosystem Support
The iCreate Drone Challenge 2025 brings together stakeholders from the government, technology and startup ecosystem to support the development of next-generation drone technologies.
Dassault Systèmes is supporting the challenge through its SOLIDWORKS Startup Program and 3DEXPERIENCE platform, providing technology development support and global expertise to participating startups and innovators.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is also associated with the challenge and supports its objective of strengthening indigenous drone innovation and the startup ecosystem.
Challenge Timeline
Applications open: 1 October 2025
Applications close: 15 November 2025
Regional qualifier rounds: 15–31 November 2025
Prototype acceleration programme: December 2025
Grand Demo Day: 9 January 2026
Building India’s Next Generation of Drone Innovators
The iCreate Drone Challenge 2025 provides innovators with an opportunity to develop high-performance drones, build critical indigenous components and test their technologies against demanding performance benchmarks.
By combining funding, prototyping infrastructure, mentorship, industry connections and technology support, the challenge aims to help promising innovations move from prototypes towards scalable solutions.
Through the iCreate Drone Challenge 2025, iCreate continues to support the development of indigenous drone technologies and enable the next generation of innovators to shape the future of aerial innovation.
Changing environment reiterating the need and importance of quick and reliable technology solutions in accordance with local needs.
