Tata Elxsi Limited has announced a strategic investment in Kavia AI, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise AI platform company. The move aims to scale AI-driven software engineering for products and enterprises.

Strategic partnership for enterprise AI

The investment strengthens the collaboration between Tata Elxsi and Kavia AI to help enterprises manage, modernise, and transform complex software environments at scale. This strategic step comes under STEP.UP, Tata Elxsi's startup engagement program for high-potential deep tech companies.

Manoj Raghavan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Tata Elxsi, stated that the investment reflects a shared vision for AI-driven software engineering. He noted that through STEP.UP, the company has worked closely with Kavia AI and witnessed the strength of its technology firsthand.

Enhancing the AI Development Lifecycle

Tata Elxsi enables enterprises to implement the AI Development Lifecycle (AIDLC), which accelerates architecture design, brownfield refactoring, software development, quality assurance, deployment, continuous monitoring, and debugging.

The collaboration combines Tata Elxsi's domain-led engineering expertise with Kavia AI's knowledge graph and workflow intelligence platform. Over the past year, the two companies have deployed the platform for enterprise engineering use cases, addressing challenges related to industry-specific product engineering, accelerated release cycles, quality, resilience, and cybersecurity readiness.

While most AI tools focus on accelerating coding, Kavia AI enables enterprises to scale across the AIDLC by combining persistent knowledge, governed engineering artifacts, collaboration, traceability, and deployment through a single platform.

Labeeb Ismail, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kavia AI, expressed delight at the strategic investment. He highlighted that Kavia AI brings system assets for enterprises to establish AIDLC workflows, operating models, and checks needed to operationalise AI across the software lifecycle.

Tata Elxsi is a global design and technology leader with over 35 years of experience across industries including automotive, media, healthcare, energy, smart manufacturing, and communications.

Tata Elxsi has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sarla Aviation to collaborate on the development of Shunya, India’s first indigenous electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The partnership aims to accelerate the platform’s path to first flight within the next 18 to 24 months.

The agreement was signed on September 1, 2026, at Sarla Aviation’s newly inaugurated headquarters in Bengaluru. Manoj Raghavan, CEO and Managing Director of Tata Elxsi, and Adrian Schmidt, Co-Founder and CEO of Sarla Aviation, led the signing ceremony alongside Rakesh Gaonkar, Co-Founder and CTO of Sarla Aviation.

Scope of Collaboration

Tata Elxsi will provide engineering support across critical aerospace domains, including avionics, flight control systems, software integration, testing, verification, validation, and certification. Sarla Aviation will retain leadership over the design, development, and type certification of the Shunya platform.

The engagement also opens opportunities for Tata Elxsi to support sensor fusion-based navigation software, industrial and structural design, and airworthiness test support. This division of labor leverages Tata Elxsi’s expertise in flight-critical digital engineering and Sarla Aviation’s vision for urban air mobility.

Shunya Aircraft Specifications

Shunya is a six-seater plus one pilot aircraft designed for advanced air mobility operations. Key technical parameters include:

• Range: 300 km+ flight operations
• Configuration: Vertical take-off and landing capability combined with fixed-wing cruise efficiency
• Operational Model: Runway-independent operations with improved propulsion efficiency

The aircraft is currently in the development phase, with certification activities expected to follow the targeted first flight window.

Strategic Outlook

The partnership extends beyond passenger transport, with potential applications in logistics, air ambulance services, and defence-related sectors. For Tata Elxsi, Advanced Air Mobility represents a natural extension of its work in connected, autonomous, and electrified transportation systems.

Adrian Schmidt emphasized that building a new class of aircraft requires solving unprecedented engineering challenges. He noted that Tata Elxsi’s experience in complex aerospace systems provides critical capabilities to move Shunya from concept to reality. He added that the collaboration brings together teams that believe advanced air mobility can move from ambition to everyday infrastructure sooner than many think.

Manoj Raghavan stated that every major shift in transportation relies on engineering innovation and ecosystem readiness. He highlighted that initiatives like this allow Tata Elxsi to apply expertise built across aerospace, mobility, and digital technologies to entirely new aviation platforms.

Jayaraj Rajapandian, Head of Aerospace at Tata Elxsi, added that Shunya reflects the rapid evolution of aerospace innovation in India. As aircraft become increasingly fly-by-wire, electrified, and connected, new opportunities emerge to rethink how people, goods, and critical services move.

The disclosure was made in compliance with Regulation 30 of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015.