VECROS: How Besta Prem Sai is Building India's First Self-Flying Spatial AI Drones
In the world of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), most drones are only as smart as their GPS signal. When that signal drops—inside a warehouse, under a bridge, or in a forest—they become paperweights. Besta Prem Sai, Co-founder and CEO of VECROS, is solving this "Blind Spot" problem. By building drones that see the world like humans do, using Spatial AI rather than just GPS, Besta is leading a revolution in truly autonomous flight that can navigate the most complex industrial and defense environments on Earth.
Besta Prem Sai’s journey is a story of academic excellence fueled by entrepreneurial rebellion. A graduate of IIT Delhi in Engineering Physics, Besta was once a top candidate in the campus placement process. However, during his final interviews, he realized that a corporate job would never satisfy his obsession with robotics. He walked out of the placements to build VECROS (Vector Robotic Operating System). Alongside co-founder Rajeshree Deotalu, he has built a venture that has won prestigious Startup India awards and was recently featured on **Shark Tank India Season 3**.
The GPS-Free Advantage
Standard drones rely on satellite signals to know where they are. VECROS drones use "Spatial Artificial Intelligence"—a suite of 10+ cameras and an onboard operations computer—to interpret their surroundings in real-time. This allows them to navigate autonomously even when GPS is jammed or unavailable, making them indispensable for indoor inspections and high-stakes defense missions.
The Problem: The "Crutch" of Satellite Navigation
For decades, the drone industry has treated GPS as an absolute requirement. This has limited drone usage to clear, open skies. For industrial inspection (like checking the inside of a boiler) or disaster relief (navigating through a collapsed building), traditional drones are useless. Furthermore, in defense scenarios, GPS signals are the first thing to be jammed by an adversary, rendering standard aerial assets blind.
"I saw that drones in India were just toys or simple photography tools," Besta explains. "They weren't 'Robots.' A real robot should be able to make decisions on its own. We wanted to build a system where you just tell the drone 'Go from A to B,' and it figures out the path, avoids the obstacles, and completes the mission without a pilot."
The Solution: The VECROS Spatial Intelligence Stack
VECROS has developed two flagship platforms: **Athera** (a self-flying spatial AI drone) and **Jasper** (a smaller drone designed for confined spaces). These machines are equipped with a proprietary operating system that processes visual landmarks to determine position, similar to how a human walks through a room.
The Athera Mission Workflow
- Mission Mapping: The user defines a target area or a specific inspection point on a tablet.
- Autonomous Launch: The drone takes off without manual pilot input.
- Spatial Sensing: 10+ cameras scan the environment 360-degrees, creating a real-time 3D map.
- Obstacle Negotiation: The AI identifies wires, walls, and moving objects, re-routing instantly to avoid collisions.
- Data Fulfillment: High-definition thermal and visual data is streamed back to the user in real-time.
- Auto-Landing: The drone returns to its base station and lands with centimeter-level precision.
From Placement Protest to Shark Tank
Besta’s decision to skip IIT Delhi placements was a shock to his peers and family. He spent his early days "tinkering" in the lab with raw enthusiasm, eventually joining hands with Rajeshree to formalize the business. Their grit paid off when they secured traction with global giants like **Nokia** and attracted investment from marquee names like **100X.VC** and **Nirman Ventures**.
"It's a solo journey until you are successful," Besta reflects. "During placements, everyone was focused on salaries. I was focused on how to make a drone stay stable without GPS. Success is about staying alive for another day until the market realizes you were right all along."
VECROS Scale & Innovation
- India's First Spatial AI Drone: Pioneering autonomous flight in GPS-denied environments.
- IIT Delhi Roots: Born out of the Engineering Physics department and the Aero Club.
- $500k+ Total Funding: Backed by Nirman Ventures, 100X.VC, and Eternal Capital.
- Centimeter-Level Precision: Achieving industrial-grade accuracy in complex 3D mapping.
Lessons in Resilience: The 9-Month Wait
VECROS faced its greatest challenge during the early R&D phase. Deep-tech requires patient capital and even more patient founders. Besta recounts how they spent nine months just perfecting the stability of their AI models before they could even pitch to a client. This period of "invisible progress" is where most startups fail, but for Besta, it was the necessary foundation for their current success.
"Never get married to one idea," he advises. "We pivoted our business model three times—from selling drones to selling 'Drone as a Service'—before finding what truly worked for large industrial clients. Be ready to change the 'How' while staying obsessed with the 'What'."
Founder's Lesson: Humanize Your Product
Besta believes that even the most advanced tech needs to be user-centric. "Our biggest breakthrough wasn't the AI; it was making the interface so simple that a non-technical person could run a complex mission with one click. Make the tech invisible to the user."
The Future: Globalizing Indian Robotics
Besta’s vision for VECROS is to become the leading provider of autonomous aerial systems for the global industrial market. With plans to expand into the US and Southeast Asian markets by 2026, he is proving that India can move beyond software services to lead the world in high-end hardware and AI integration.
VECROS is proving that the future of flight is not in the hands of a pilot, but in the logic of the machine. By giving drones "eyes" and a "brain," Besta Prem Sai and his team are ensuring that for the next generation of aerial robots, the sky is no longer the limit—it’s just the beginning.
About the Guest
Besta Prem Sai is the Co-founder and CEO of VECROS. An IIT Delhi graduate in Engineering Physics, Besta is a visionary in the field of spatial AI and autonomous systems. Under his leadership, VECROS has emerged as a premier deep-tech startup, winning multiple national awards and securing strategic partnerships with global tech firms. He is a passionate advocate for Indian hardware innovation and a recognized leader in the global UAV landscape.
VECROS is a deep-tech robotics startup specializing in AI-powered autonomous drones. By utilizing Spatial AI and computer vision, the company develops drones that can operate in GPS-denied environments, providing critical solutions for industrial inspection, construction monitoring, and defense applications.