Joint venture with DGVK Enterprises will build Sol.One’s full range of drones in India, for India
Bruges / New Delhi, 19 October 2026 – Sol.One, a leading European drone manufacturer, today begins operating in India. Together with DGVK Enterprises Private Limited, Sol.One has founded DG Sol.One Drone Technologies Private Limited (DG Sol.One) in New Delhi, an Indian company, owned and led in India.
India guards some of the most demanding frontiers on earth: deserts, long coastlines and the highest mountains in the world. Sol.One considers India one of its most important markets and intends to bring its full range of drones to the country, from border protection to high-mountain operations and missions in support of the Indian Navy, in full compliance with Belgian and European export procedures. These drones will be built in India, by an Indian company, at the automotive scale that defines Sol.One. Growth in India also means growth at home: every drone built in India creates work in Bruges and Ghent as well. India has set out to equip its forces with drones made in India, in numbers never seen before, and Sol.One wants to help the Government of India achieve that.
The scale of that ambition shows in India’s budgets. Its defence budget for 2026–27 stands at around €71 billion, of which some €20 billion goes to new equipment, and roughly three quarters of that investment is reserved for Indian industry. Drones sit at the heart of it: India is preparing the largest drone procurement in its history, more than €1.5 billion in orders to domestic manufacturers, with deliveries running through 2027, and the next wave is already in preparation. With DG Sol.One, Sol.One takes its place inside that market as an Indian company.
The step builds on Sol.One’s participation in the Belgian defence mission to New Delhi from 1 to 4 September 2026, where Sol.One and DGVK signed their memorandum of understanding on 3 September, in the presence of the Ministers of Defence of India and Belgium, Rajnath Singh and Theo Francken. That memorandum has now led to DG Sol.One Drone Technologies Pvt.Ltd.
DG Sol.One is led by Dipankar Ganguly as Managing Director and Chairman of the Board. An entrepreneur for more than four decades across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, he built a garment manufacturer in Istanbul into one of Türkiye’s largest exporters, with around 2,000 employees, and today leads DGVK Enterprises, a trusted partner of Indian government at state and national level. Along with the Swiss Company Bartholet, DGVK has built India’s first ever ropeway Urban Transport System in Varanasi - the constituency of the Honourable Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi. It will transport 56.000 people daily and will be commissioned in the next two months. He is joined by Pankaj Kaushal, who brings more than 6,000 flight hours on large unmanned aircraft and 21 years in the Indian Army, where he flew the Army’s largest strategic unmanned aircraft and served as test pilot for India’s own DRDO programmes. As a qualified flying instructor, he trained more than 200 UAV operators.
“The future of drones is being written today on Europe’s eastern flank, and Sol.One remains fully committed to the defence of Europe. India is the other place where drones will be built and flown at a scale the world has rarely seen. We come to India to stay: to build here, to fly here and to serve those who protect this country, from the border posts in the high Himalaya to the ships of the Indian Navy. Sol.One stands for Safety Of Life and One world. Few places give those words more meaning than India,” says Filip Verhaeghe, Managing Director of Sol.One.
“India has decided to build the drones its forces need at home. DG Sol.One brings the technology and the production know-how of one of Europe’s leading drone makers into an Indian company, run by Indians. We begin on the eve of Vijayadashami, the festival of victory. We could ask for no better omen,” says Dipankar Ganguly, Managing Director and Chairman of DG Sol.One.
DG Sol.One was founded on the eve of Vijayadashami, the festival of the victory of good over evil. In India, it is traditionally regarded as the most auspicious moment to begin a new venture: what starts under its sign is believed to succeed. For Sol.One and DGVK, there could be no better start for a partnership built for the long term.
About Sol.One
Safety Of Life in One world is the mission of Sol.One, a leading European drone manufacturer headquartered in Belgium. Bringing automotive-scale production to drones, it builds systems for inspection and transport in the civilian world, and as drone mothership, rocket launcher, ISR, logistics, evacuation and electronic warfare on the military side. Air defence systems protect people and infrastructure on the ground from incoming drones. www.sol.one
About DG Sol.One Drone Technologies
DG Sol.One Drone Technologies is a joint venture of Sol.One and DGVK Enterprises Private Limited, incorporated in New Delhi on 19 October 2026. It brings Sol.One’s drone production to India, for Indian customers.
Media contact
Europe: Filip Verhaeghe, Managing Director, Sol.One – press@sol.one
India: Dipankar Ganguly, Managing Director and Chairman, DG Sol.One – press@sol.one