Panache Solutions & Logistics LLP

A clear-eyed look at where they stood.

Panache Solutions & Logistics LLP is a DPIIT-recognised startup building aerospace and defence technology. By the time they came to CapEasy, the core engineering work was done: the prototype was validated. What they needed was capital and a credible path to move that prototype toward a procurement-ready stage, the point where a hardware product is documented, tested and packaged well enough for a buyer or programme to evaluate it seriously.

Hardware in aerospace and defence carries a specific kind of funding problem. Prototyping, materials, testing cycles and specialised R&D talent are expensive well before there is any revenue, and procurement timelines in this sector run long. Seed-stage grant funding exists precisely for this gap, but it comes with its own discipline: SISFS, the DPIIT scheme most startups in this position turn to, offers a grant route capped at ₹20 lakh or a convertible-debenture route capped at ₹50 lakh, never both, disbursed through a DPIIT-approved incubator and released against milestones rather than as a lump sum.

That structure means the application itself has to do real work. A committee reviewing a SISFS proposal wants to see DPIIT eligibility established cleanly, a budget that maps to what the scheme actually permits, and a milestone plan it can hold the founder to. Getting any of those wrong, or leaving them vague, is where seed-stage applications typically stall.

CapEasy prepared the SISFS proposal end to end. The first piece was establishing DPIIT eligibility on paper, not just in principle, so the incubator committee had a clean basis to evaluate the application against.

The second piece was the budget itself. SISFS funds are grant-permitted spend only, prototype development, engineering work, and R&D talent, and explicitly exclude marketing or commercialisation costs. We built the budget line by line around that boundary, so nothing in the ask could be read as out of scope.

Around that budget, we structured a staged milestone plan. Because SISFS grants release in tranches rather than upfront, the plan had to sequence deliverables in an order a committee could track and sign off on stage by stage, not just describe the end goal.

We also modelled the financial projections behind the application and structured the full submission to the scheme’s own compliance requirements, matching the incubator’s format and documentation expectations rather than presenting a generic pitch.

The outcome

Panache Solutions & Logistics LLP was approved for a ₹10 lakh SISFS grant, routed through the NSUT incubator. That approval is the incubator committee’s sanction; disbursement now follows the scheme’s own due-diligence and milestone process, in tranches tied to progress, and is not guaranteed in full or on any fixed schedule.

What made it work

Milestone-linked grants reward applications that a committee can verify against, not just approve on faith. Keeping the budget strictly inside grant-permitted spend, and sequencing the milestone plan so each stage was checkable on its own, gave the NSUT incubator a proposal it could evaluate stage by stage rather than as one large, hard-to-audit ask.

For a hardware startup in aerospace and defence, where the distance between a validated prototype and a procurement-ready product is measured in engineering hours and test cycles, that discipline in the paperwork is often what decides whether seed capital arrives in time to matter.