Dive Deep: How Planys Technologies is Changing Underwater Inspections
In the noise of the coastal city of Chennai, a group of young engineers from IIT Madras would meet up in a small lab in 2012, their minds brimming with ideas. Little did they know that this passion project would build into what is now Planys Technologies, a company on its way to turning the world of underwater inspections upside down. In 2015, Planys was founded and grew to be the lighthouse of innovation in Marine Robotics, Non-Destructive Testing, and Intelligent Data Analytics. This is a story about a group of visionaries who dived deep into the challenge of underwater infrastructure maintenance and surfaced with solutions that created waves across industries.
Depths of Innovation : A Spark Beneath the Surface
The Planys Technologies journey started within the premises of IIT Madras when Tanuj Jhunjhunwala, Vineet Upadhyay, and professors Prabhu Rajagopal and Krishnan Balasubramanian shared a common vision: revolutionizing underwater inspections. Traditional methods were not only risky but also time-consuming and often inaccurate. The team saw the opportunity for using robotics and state-of-the-art sensors to find a solution to create much safer and more efficient inspection solutions.
“We started with this very simple notion,” recalls Tanuj Jhunjhunwala of Planys, its cofounder. “What if we could send robots instead of divers to inspect the underwater structure? It seemed ambitious, but we knew it would be a game-changer.”
From Concept to Reality
Their first focus was toward a pipeline inspection robot. The deeper the problems industries were facing, the more it showed that something versatile could be designed. For years next, they would continue working toward improving designs and broadening capabilities.
“Our product evolved to have use cases across sectors,” says Jhunjhunwala. “We added more features in the underwater inspection area and towards data analytics and reporting. It wasn’t just about the robot anymore; it’s creating a full inspection ecosystem.”
Navigating Turbulent Waters
The journey from an academic project to a commercial triumph was long and arduous. Deep tech startup scaling requires both technical expertise and business acumen with market understanding. They had to face the challenges of fundraising, product development, and market penetration.
Co-founder and mentor Professor Prabhu Rajagopal reflects on these challenges thus: “Despite the difficulties in scaling an academic project into a commercial establishment, Planys had both a team of driven entrepreneurs and product-market fit that ensured growth and evolution over the years.”
Breakthroughs and Milestones
Planys did not give up. Its ROVs slowly but surely entered the market, testing the waters of underwater inspections where no one had before. The long list of this company’s innovations includes :
1. Portable and modular ROV designs for easy deployment
2. High-definition cameras with advanced lighting systems
3. Laser defect quantification for exact measurements
4. Turbid water inspection capabilities
5. Corrosion monitoring features
6. AI-driven digital reporting dashboards
These developments drew the attention of maritime, infrastructure, and energy sector majors. Planys’ technology did not bring incremental change; rather, it became a game-changer in its segment.
Making Waves in the Industry
The reputation of Planys grew, and so did the impact in the industry. Their unmanned ROVs were making inspections in hazardous areas without shutdowns, which was a capability very important for maintaining operational continuity in critical infrastructure.
One of the marine consultants, impressed with their work, mentioned, “Planys provided a well-prepared report and could tailor their solution based on site conditions. Their team is highly skilled and provides high-quality service.”
They gave us high-quality data with accurate geo-tagged locations of defects quantified. This reduced a lot of our internal work and now we can plan quickly for the repairs,” says the Chief Engineer of a major dam.
Expanding Horizons
Success brought growth, and Planys expanded its operations to include mobile offices in the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia. With that came the scaling of operations across the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia in the production of high-quality inspection services worldwide.
Its ambitions grew along with the company. “We will continue to scale our operational capacity and increase the inventory of underwater inspection solutions by providing high-end applications including non-destructive testing of metal and concrete structures, specialized inspection robotics for the process and hydrocarbon industry, real-time monitoring applications, and advanced digital reporting solutions” says Vineet Upadhyay, Chief Technology Officer.
Dive into Defense
In what could be a big-bang move, Planys began building underwater drones for the defence sector. “We are now prototyping an underwater drone for the defence sector and will continue to focus on this use case,” Jhunjhunwala says. Powered by the Centre’s defence innovation framework, the IDEX-backed move brings new opportunities for the firm in national security use cases.
Timeline of Key Events
- 2012: The initial concept development starts at IIT Madras
- 2015: Planys Technologies is incorporated as a private limited company and incubated at the Incubation Cell of IIT Madras
- 2015-2018: ROV technology developed and refined
- 2019: Expansion of services to advanced NDT and data analytics
- 2020: International expansion; mobile offices in the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia
- 2022: Foray into the defence sector by developing an underwater drone prototype
- 2023: Raised ₹43 crore in equity funding led by investor Ashish Kacholia
Diving Deeper: Lessons from the Deep
The story of Planys Technologies—from a university lab to a worldwide player in underwater inspection technologies—brings along with it so many insights that aspiring innovators can pick up:
1. Spot Real-World Issues: Planys has taken up one of the major problems faced by infrastructure maintenance and safety.
2. Embrace Evolution: It was the willingness of the company to modify its technology for different sectors and applications that became the real growth drivers.
3. Leverage Local Expertise: Developing technology indigenously, Planys is aligned with national initiatives and, on top of that, it has solutions that fit easily into specific regional requirements.
4. Getting the Balance Right between Technology and Business: The fact that the team had the right blend of technical expertise and an entrepreneurial drive made all the difference in surmounting the struggles of scaling a deep tech startup.
5. Think Beyond the Product: Overall, what really set Planys apart from its competitors was the fact that it genuinely focused on taking the vision to an ecosystem with data analytics and reporting.
As Planys Technologies continues on the course of innovation, it stands now as a shining example of what vision combined with relentless execution stands to achieve. Down from the ocean depths to the frontiers of technology, Planys does much more than inspect the underwater world – it’s reshaping our capability to understand and maintain it.
