Bengaluru, Jan. 7 -- Powered by an Operation Sindoor-driven surge in venture capital into India's hardware-heavy defence-tech ecosystem, companies-from space-surveillance startups such as Digantara and GalaxEye to listed drone maker ideaForge-are moving beyond metal to develop deeper software capabilities, aiming to become more durable, full-spectrum defence firms.

Software has become equally important because it's easy to adapt and scale, said Anirudh Sharma, founder and chief executive at Digantara. "Everybody in the intelligence and defence community wants interconnected systems."

Digantara, which started with a hardware platform in 2020, soon discovered that defence customers wanted direct, sovereign control over the software layer ...