Around the same time as President Trump was sworn-in in January 2025, our company achieved a milestone that would have been unimaginable just seven years ago. Big Bang Boom Solutions became India’s first iDEX startup to export and deliver defence systems to a friendly country. This was not merely a commercial achievement; it validated a fundamental shift in India’s defence ecosystem. As someone who has navigated this transformation from the trenches rather than the policy corridors, I offer this assessment not as an observer, but as a practitioner who has experienced both the promise and the friction of reform.
The question we must examine honestly is whether 2025 truly represented a “year of reforms” that delivered meaningful change, or whether it remained largely aspirational rhetoric. The answer, I have found, is more nuanced than either celebration or cynicism would suggest.
The Foundation: Reforms That Have Taken Root
When we founded our company in 2018, the defence technology landscape was starkly different. Defence Public Sector Undertakings dominated not only production but also innovation, foreign OEMs controlled high-value contracts, and the defence startup ecosystem was virtually non-existent. The phrase Aatmanirbhar Bharat had not yet entered the national vocabulary, and the idea that a Chennai-based deep-tech startup could secure developmental contracts across all three services would have seemed improbable.
Seven years later, the transformation is tangible. The Innovations for Defence Excellence programme, launched in 2018, has matured from an experimental initiative into a robust pipeline connecting innovators with military end-users. Our own journey, securing ten developmental partnerships with the Ministry of Defence, converting three into procurement contracts worth over $40 million, and raising $30 million in venture capital, would not have been possible without this structural reform.
The iDEX framework addressed a long-standing challenge in defence innovation: the gap between prototype development and procurement. By providing grant funding, facilitating access to military testing facilities, and creating clear pathways from innovation to adoption, iDEX reduced risk on both sides. Startups could invest in defence technology without wagering their survival on uncertain outcomes, while the armed forces could evaluate solutions without committing to procurement upfront.
The impact extends beyond individual companies. According to Ministry of Defence data, iDEX has funded over 300 startups and MSMEs, with approximately 75 solutions transitioning from development to trials or procurement. More importantly, it has altered institutional culture. Officers who once viewed startups with scepticism now actively seek innovative solutions, recognising that agility and cost-effectiveness matter alongside proven track records.
The phased introduction of the negative import list from 2020 onwards has been another consequential reform. By restricting imports of 411 defence items and encouraging indigenous alternatives, it created genuine market opportunities for Indian manufacturers. Our work on electronic warfare systems and AI-enabled platforms benefited directly from this shift, allowing us to compete not as a compliance requirement, but on technical and economic merit.
Defence exports, once peripheral to national strategy, have emerged as both a priority and a measure of industrial maturity. India’s defence exports crossed $2.6 billion in FY 2023–24, up from $686 million in FY 2018–19. Our January 2025 export delivery demonstrated that Indian defence technology can compete globally not only on cost, but on capability. Streamlined export authorisation processes and government-facilitated buyer engagement were critical enablers.
The liberalisation of Foreign Direct Investment in defence, permitting up to 74% under the automatic route and 100% through government approval, has begun attracting serious capital. Our $30 million fundraiser, delivering 15 times returns to early investors, helped convince venture capital that defence technology is not only strategically vital, but commercially viable. This is catalysing an ecosystem where talent, capital, and entrepreneurship are converging on national security challenges.
The Friction Points: Where Progress Lags Promise
Honesty demands acknowledgement of where reforms have fallen short of transformative impact. The gap between policy intent and implementation reality remains significant in several areas.
Procurement timelines, despite reform efforts, remain stubbornly long. While iDEX has accelerated development cycles, the transition from successful trials to large-scale procurement continues to navigate multiple approval layers, technical evaluations, and financial vetting processes. What should take 18 to 24 months often stretches to 36 to 48 months, creating cash flow pressures for startups and MSMEs that lack large balance sheets. The Defence Procurement Procedure 2020 introduced welcome simplifications, but execution remains inconsistent across services and categories.
The offset policy, designed to build indigenous capability through technology transfer, has delivered mixed outcomes. While some foreign OEMs have established meaningful partnerships in India, others have met obligations through low-value activities that do little to enhance domestic capability. Transfer of critical design knowledge, manufacturing processes, and core subsystems remains limited in many high-value programmes.
Despite policy support, MSMEs and startups continue to face structural disadvantages when competing with DPSUs and large private players. Evaluation criteria often emphasise prior experience, installed capacity, and turnover, parameters that favour incumbents. Although the “Make-I” category under DPP 2020 seeks to address this imbalance, awareness and adoption remain limited. Access to testing infrastructure, qualification facilities, and domain expertise also remains a challenge for smaller firms.
Defence industrial corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have made progress in infrastructure development, but the manufacturing ecosystems envisioned are still nascent. Land allocation and utilities are improving, yet anchor investments that create supplier networks and skilled labour pools have been slower to emerge. This reflects not policy failure, but the reality that industrial ecosystems require patient capital, stable policy, and market certainty over extended periods.
Export growth, while encouraging, remains concentrated in a narrow range of products and markets. Even with a capable product and a willing buyer, navigating export clearances, end-user certification, and logistics support requires persistence and active facilitation. Scaling from isolated successes to sustained international competitiveness will require continued diplomatic engagement and competitive financing mechanisms.
2025: A Year of Consolidation, Not Revolution
Was 2025 truly a “year of reforms” in defence? A more accurate characterisation is that it was a year of consolidation, when reforms introduced over the previous five to seven years began delivering visible, scalable outcomes.
Our January 2025 export achievement was the cumulative result of multiple reforms: iDEX funding that reduced R&D risk, negative import lists that created demand for indigenous solutions, export facilitation that enabled foreign engagement, and certification frameworks that built buyer confidence. No single 2025 initiative enabled this outcome; rather, sustained policy direction compounded over time.
This underscores a critical lesson. In defence, a sector defined by long development cycles and high operational stakes, meaningful change does not result from headline announcements. It emerges through incremental improvements, patient capital, and sustained government-industry collaboration.
The evolution of the iDEX programme illustrates this trajectory. The 2025 cohorts exhibit higher proposal quality, clearer articulation of military requirements, and faster execution than those of 2018–19. This improvement reflects accumulated learning rather than isolated policy intervention.
Similarly, the growth of defence exports reflects years of groundwork in diplomacy, quality enhancement, and credibility building. Each successful delivery, whether our system to an FFC or BrahMos missiles to the Philippines, strengthens confidence and opens subsequent opportunities.
The Road Ahead: Realistic Optimism
As we look towards 2026 and beyond, the appropriate stance is one of realistic optimism. The policy foundation is sound. Frameworks such as iDEX, negative import lists, FDI liberalisation, and export promotion are directionally correct and beginning to deliver results. Evidence lies in ecosystem indicators: venture capital entering defence, engineering talent choosing defence careers, and military formations actively seeking innovation.
However, continued attention is essential. Procurement simplification must translate from policy to consistent practice. Technology transfer obligations require stricter enforcement. Testing and qualification infrastructure must expand to meet growing demand. Above all, defence innovation requires patient, risk-tolerant capital willing to support five to seven-year development cycles.
Defence industrial corridors need anchor investments to create gravitational pull for suppliers and a skilled workforce. This may necessitate proactive government coordination, risk-sharing mechanisms, or direct investment in foundational projects.
For MSMEs and startups, success depends not only on policy support but on execution capability. Many promising firms fail due to weak project management, inadequate quality systems, or the inability to scale. Incubators, industry bodies, and government programmes must focus as much on organisational maturity as on technical innovation.
Progress Over Perfection
As someone who has built a profitable defence technology company from scratch in seven years, I can state unequivocally that the reform journey has been real and consequential. Securing contracts across all three services, raising significant venture capital, delivering strong investor returns, and exporting Indian defence systems would have been impossible in the pre-2018 ecosystem.
Yet triumphalism would be misplaced. Reform is working incrementally and unevenly. Transforming India from an import-dependent defence consumer into an innovation-driven, export-competitive power will take decades of sustained effort.
The real question is not whether 2025 was a “year of reforms,” but whether reforms are being implemented persistently, adapted to ground realities, and given the time required to mature. On that measure, the trajectory is positive.
The Prime Minister’s vision of “Make in India, Make for the World” is no longer aspirational. It is becoming an operational reality. Our January 2025 export delivery demonstrated that. Converting this momentum into a dominant paradigm will require policy stability, execution excellence, and an ecosystem-wide commitment to quality and innovation.
The foundation has been laid. The task ahead is to build upon it with patience, pragmatism, and an uncompromising pursuit of excellence. That is how defence reforms move from policy intent to strategic capability.
The writer is Co-Founder of Big Bang Boom Solutions
