TDB Clears Rs 285 Crore for Ubifly's Indigenous ePlane e200X

The Technology Development Board (TDB), which works under the Department of Science and Technology, has approved Rs 285 crore of financial support to Ubifly Technologies Private Limited of Chennai. The money comes from the Research Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund and will go into the company's indigenous ePlane advanced air mobility solution. The announcement was made on 23 September 2026.

How the money is structured

The project as a whole has been costed at Rs 570 crore, so the Board is carrying half of it. The support will not be a plain grant: it is being routed through Optionally Convertible Debentures (OCD), a debt instrument that the lender may later convert into equity shares of the company. The RDI Fund itself is a Rs 1 lakh crore pool meant to pull private firms into high-risk, high-value technology work.

From TRL-6 to TRL-9

The stated purpose of the funding is to move the technology from Technology Readiness Level 6 to Level 9. TRL is the scale used worldwide to describe how far a technology has travelled from the laboratory: level 6 is a prototype demonstrated in a relevant environment, while level 9 is a system proven in actual operations. Crossing that distance needs further testing, validation and scale-up, and it is the step at which a laboratory idea turns into a product that can be sold.

What the e200X is

• A three-seater aircraft configured for one pilot and two passengers.
• Zero-emission, electrically powered, with a targeted range of 110 km and an ideal speed of 160 kmph.
• Indigenous parts include vertical rotors, forward propellers, the flight-control algorithms, power-distribution controllers and battery packs with cooling built in.
• Landing gear designed for both conventional and vertical landing, so it can work out of small spaces.
• The company designed the full airframe, fuselage, wings and booms, on its own.

Who said what

TDB Secretary Rajesh Kumar Pathak said the RDI Fund marks a shift towards letting private players lead the building of high-impact technologies and towards carrying promising ideas closer to deployment. The project is classified under Deep Technology, with Space Technologies as its sub-sector.