It is rare to see a quarter-century-old engineering firm raising venture-style growth rounds, but India’s defence sector is currently operating under its own set of physics. CoreEL Technologies, a Bengaluru-based veteran in the aerospace and defence electronics space, has secured $30 million in a Series B funding round.
The investment was led by ValueQuest Scale Fund, with existing backer 360 ONE Asset returning to increase its stake—a move that signals deep conviction in the company’s trajectory just months after leading a $16 million Series A in December 2023.
The 25-Year Overnight Success
Founded in 1999, CoreEL is not a typical startup. It has spent decades entrenched in the supply chains of the Ministry of Defence, DRDO, and various defence PSUs. The company specializes in the unglamorous but critical “guts” of modern warfare: advanced electronic systems for radars, electronic warfare (EW) suites, avionics, and military communications.
For years, companies like CoreEL operated quietly in the background as subsystem vendors. However, New Delhi’s aggressive push for indigenization has transformed these domestic manufacturers into strategic assets. The market is shifting from an integrator-led model—assembling foreign “black boxes”—to an IP-led model where the value lies in local signal processing and mission computers. CoreEL sits squarely in that transition.
We continue to develop some of the most advanced electronic systems for strategic aerospace and defence programmes. This Series B funding reflects strong investor confidence in our long-term strategy, engineering depth and execution capability.
— Vishwanath Padur, Managing Director of CoreEL Technologies.
Profits over Burn
From a financial perspective, CoreEL looks nothing like the burn-heavy software platforms that usually dominate Series B headlines. The company is profitable and growing fast. According to VCCEdge data, revenue climbed from ₹255.3 crore in FY24 to ₹334.9 crore in FY25. More importantly, net profit surged nearly 5x, jumping from ₹10.9 crore to ₹52.3 crore in the same period.
This financial health is likely what attracted ValueQuest, a fund that typically targets innovation-driven tech companies with proven unit economics.
CoreEL’s strong positioning across aerospace and defence with its proven technological capabilities and its focus on indigenous development aligns well with our objective of investing in innovation‑driven technology companies.
— Pushkar Jauhari, Managing Director at ValueQuest.
Capital for Capacity, Not Slides
The company has stated that the fresh $30 million will be deployed into hard assets and R&D rather than marketing. The capital is earmarked to scale manufacturing capacity and deepen product engineering. Practically, this means faster iteration cycles on mission computers and the ability to handle larger, more complex contracts for radar and EW systems.
The raise also follows a strategic consolidation move. CoreEL recently acquired the aerospace and defence division of Lekha Wireless, absorbing indigenous IP and talent in wireless communications. This bolt-on acquisition significantly strengthens their hand in military communications (MILCOM) and secure data links—technologies that are essential for network-centric warfare.
Umesh Agrawal, fund manager at 360 ONE Asset, noted that his firm was the first institutional investor to back the team’s vision, framing the follow-on investment as a double-down on a platform that is successfully moving from “idea to implementation.”
What comes next
CoreEL is carving out a defensible niche between the massive public sector giants like BEL and HAL, and the global primes like Thales or Raytheon. By controlling the IP for high-complexity electronics, they create high switching costs for their government clients.
With the Series B closed, the company is looking beyond domestic procurement. The stated goal is to leverage this capital to enter large defence programmes overseas, effectively transitioning from a “Make in India” vendor to an export-grade defence electronics brand.
