Mangaluru’s Zupple Labs wins DRDO’s first-ever blockchain defence project

Mangaluru-based Zupple Labs has been selected by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) under its Technology Development Fund (TDF) programme. Its brief: build India's first indigenous framework for security auditing of blockchain applications in the defence sector.

The selection is rare by any measure. Fewer than 90 projects have made it through the TDF programme in its ten-year history, and this is the first in the blockchain domain.

What DRDO has asked Zupple Labs to build

Over the next 30 months, Zupple Labs will develop a platform that DRDO will use to standardise security audits of upcoming blockchain applications across the defence sector.

As defence agencies explore distributed ledgers for records, logistics and authentication, a common auditing standard matters. It gives every new application the same security bar before deployment, and keeps that capability built and owned in India.

Trust infrastructure for governments

Zupple Labs builds blockchain-powered trust infrastructure for governments and institutions, with a presence across four countries. Its systems secure and authenticate critical citizen records, making them tamper-evident and verifiable.

The records it handles include:

• Land records
• Educational credentials
• Identities
• Permits and work orders

A client list that spans continents

The DRDO mandate builds on an established public-sector track record. Zupple Labs has delivered solutions for:

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)
• The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
• The Australian and New Zealand student immigration ecosystems
• The Governments of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra
• The Government of Kenya

Work with national ministries, a UN agency and foreign governments gives the startup experience in exactly the kind of high-stakes, compliance-heavy environments that defence demands.

From Mangaluru to the national stage

Zupple Labs was a winner of the Karnataka government's Elevate programme in 2019. Seven years on, its DRDO selection is a strong signal for the state's Beyond Bengaluru push to grow startup hubs outside the capital.

Congratulating Zupple Labs on securing a project under DRDO’s TDF programme, Capt Brijesh Chowta, Member of Parliament from Dakshina Kannada, said: “Glad to see Zupple Labs, one of the 10 start-ups in this year’s ‘Bolpu’ cohort, making strides in strengthening the security and resilience of blockchain technology and contributing to India’s growing cybersecurity capabilities.”

The point goes beyond one company. Deep-tech work of national significance is now coming out of Karnataka's tier-2 cities, and Mangaluru is proving it can build for governments, global institutions and the country's defence establishment.