Skyroot raises Rs 403 cr in largest funding round in Indian space-tech sector

The fresh round of funding follows the Indian government’s major thrust to the space sector by opening it up to private sector players including startups and encouraging private investments into the sector.

Hyderabad: City-based private aerospace manufacturer and commercial launch service provider Skyroot raised $51 million (about Rs 403 crore) Series-B financing round. This is the largest funding round ever in the Indian space-tech sector, it said. GIC, which is one of the established investors in India, led the funding round. Mayank Rawat, Managing Director of GIC India Direct Investment Group, will be joining Skyroot’s Board.

The fresh round of funding follows the Indian government’s major thrust to the space sector by opening it up to private sector players including startups and encouraging private investments into the sector. The company plans to cater to the demand from the international small satellite market.

Skyroot is pioneering India’s first privately developed space launch vehicles. The flagship Vikram series of launch vehicles, named after the founder of India’s space programme Dr Vikram Sarabhai, are built with an all-carbon-fiber structure and can launch upto 800 kg of payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Skyroot is the first startup to sign an MoU with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for sharing facilities and expertise.

“This round puts us on a trajectory of growth by funding all of 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 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.

“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.

Rothschild & Co India are the financial advisors for this funding round. The company will also add more people to the current 200 engineers. Skyroot has successfully built and tested India’s first privately developed cryogenic, hypergolic-liquid, and solid fuel-based rocket engines. The research and development production activities use advanced composite and 3D-printing technologies.