Skyroot Aerospace Raises $11 Million In Series A Funding
(This was originally posted in Business Insider by Prabhjote Gill)
Indian space startup Skyroot Aerospace has raised $11 million in its series A round of funding. This is nearly 10 times the $1.5 million the rocket building entrepreneurs, Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, raised in 2018.
“We intend to raise $40 million more to fund our aggressive growth plans over the next few years,” said Daka, co-founder and chief operating officer (COO) of the Hyderabad-based company. The series A amount will be used for its rocket programme and getting their flagship vehicle, Vikram-1, off the ground.
However, Skyroot Aerospace is not the only space startup raking in fresh funding. Chennai-based Agnikul Cosmos also raised $11 million in their Series A round of funding — the largest investment in the space startup scene for both of them after the Indian government opened up the sector to private participation less than a year ago.
According to Chandana, Skyroot Aerospace’s announcement was long pending but the team was waiting for the COVID-19 situation to become comparatively better. “We had more time for design which helped in optimising our vehicle and resulted in significant cost and time savings,” he told Business Insider.
Skyroot Aerospace’s Series A was led by Greenko Group founders Anil Kumar Chalamalasetty and Mahesh Kolli. Both of them will now also be on the startup’s board of directors along with Solar Group, a major space and defence supplier. Other notable investors also include former WhatsApp global business chief Neeraj Arora, Myntra and CureFit founder Mukesh Bansal — who is also the original investor from 2018 — Graph Ventures, and Worldquant Ventures.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns were an issue for Agnikul Cosmos. “Due to the COVID-19 situation, there have been a few delays but we are looking to launch our first mission in the second half of next year,” said Srinath Ravichandran, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Agnikul Cosmos. The startup test-fired the world’s first 3D printed rocket engine Agnilet earlier this year. And it plans on conducting more such tests later this year.
Its series A round of funding was led by Mayfield India. Angel investors including Anand Mahindra, Naval Ravikant, Nithin Kamath and Balaji Srinivasan also threw their hat in the ring. The startup had raised $3.1 million in March 2020 in its pre-Series A round of funding.
