Skyroot Aerospace raises $51 mn in Series B
The funding will propel future of small satellite launch; help expand space engineering team
Skyroot founders Pawan Kumar Chandana (right) and Naga Bharath Daka (left)
Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian space-tech startup said it raised USD 51 million (Rs 403 crore) in Series-B financing round. The company plans to cater to the growing demand from the international small satellite market.
The fresh round of funding follows the Indian government's major thrust to the space sector by opening it to private sector players including startups and encouraging private investments into the sector.
The four-year old startup said this is the largest funding round in the Indian space-tech sector. "This round puts us on a trajectory of hyper-growth by funding all our initial developmental launches,and enables building infrastructure to meet high launch cadence required by our satellite customers. Our objective is to establish ourselves as a provider of best-in-class rocket launch services and the go-to destination for affordable and reliable small satellite launches," said Pawan Kumar Chandana, co-founder and CEO of Skyroot.
As GIC led the funding round, Mayank Rawat, Managing Director of GIC India Direct Investment Group will be joining Skyroot's board.
Skyroot further informed that it is the first startup to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for sharing facilities and expertise. Named after the founder of India's space programme, Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the flagship Vikram series of launch vehicles are built with an all-carbon-fiber structure which can launch up to 800 kg of payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the co-founder added.
Rothschild & Co India are the financial advisors for this funding round. The added fund will help expand their space engineering team which is currently around 200 employees. "Our current team comes with a cumulative experience of over 1000 years in the rocket industry. We plan to further strengthen our team as we are looking at a demonstrator launch to space this year. This round will help us get to full-fledged commercial satellite launch scale within a year from now. We have started booking payload slots for our upcoming launches," said Naga Bharath Daka, co-founder and COO of Skyroot.
With this round, Skyroot has expanded its shareholder base including Myntra & CultFit founder Mukesh Bansal, Greenko Group founders (Anil Chalamalasetty & Mahesh Kolli), Solar Industries India Limited, Google board member Ram Shriram's Sherpalo Ventures, Neeraj Arora (former-WhatsApp Global Business Chief), Wami Capital and others from past funding rounds.
According to a recent market survey, the global space launch services market is projected to grow from USD 14.21 billion in 2022 to USD 31.90 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 12.25 per cent in forecast period.
