LAT Aerospace has acquired Sharang Shakti, an early-stage defence robotics startup based in Gurgaon. Co-Founder Deepinder Goyal, who is also the Co-Founder of Zomato, announced this on X. The acquisition marks LAT’s first step towards building indigenous defence capabilities while advancing its civil aviation plans in India.
Goyal said the move aligns with LAT’s long-term mission to develop next-generation civil aviation platforms from India. He said the company will integrate Sharang Shakti’s robotics expertise into its broader technology roadmap.
The deal signals LAT’s intent to strengthen core aerospace systems through in-house development. “Civil aviation and defence are often viewed as separate sectors. But the core technology stack is shared across autonomy, perception, sensing, navigation, guidance, and control systems,” Goyal wrote.
By acquiring Sharang Shakti, LAT Aerospace plans to build these capabilities internally. Goyal said the company will develop systems from first principles. He added that LAT aims to deploy these capabilities across defence and civil programmes over time.
“This is our first move towards building indigenous defence capabilities alongside our long-term mission of developing next-generation civil aviation platforms from India,” he wrote.
The company also recently completed its first ultra-short take-off and landing (uSTOL) technology demonstrator in November last year. The fully electric, fixed-wing UAV was announced to be “almost ready for flight”, marking the company’s first significant milestone since it began building the aircraft and its flight lab in early 2025.
The UAV took off from 40 metres, flew for 60 minutes, and cruised autonomously between Mumbai and Pune.
The company was also told by Co-Founder Surobhi Das to be working on figuring out how to reduce weight, building their own Monte Carlo simulator, developing a ground architecture for hybrid-electric vehicles, designing physics models from scratch, and more.
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