[Funding alert] The ePlane Company raises seed round from Speciale Invest

IIT-Madras incubated startup The ePlane Company on Thursday said it has raised seed funding from Speciale Invest to be used to augment building critical infrastructure, including flying taxis.

The undisclosed investment was led by VC Speciale Invest and FirstCheque, JavaCapital and Sharechat Co-founder Farid Ahsan.

The fresh round of financing would allow the company to augment building critical infrastructure and a world-class team of engineers to develop IP and show early product demonstrations by 2021, a company statement said here.

"Electric planes can really disrupt aviation over short distances characterising urban aerial mobility. The configuration we are building will enable cost-effective air taxi operations in the future," the company co-founder professor Satya Chakravarthy said.

“In urban areas, people spend 1-2 hours every day traveling. Can we reduce it to 10-15 minutes at a similar cost? There is immense societal and economic value in that. It can even make affordable air ambulances a reality. The possibilities are endless,” said Pranjal Mehta, Co-founder and CEO, The ePlane Company.

The startup, incubated at IIT-Madras Incubation Cell, operates from the National Centre for Combustion Research and Development.

"We at Speciale Invest believe in the founders' deep-technical insights that are leading them to build a roadmap of electric planes and associated critical infrastructure," Speciale Invest managing partner Vishesh Rajaram said.

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The ePlane Company is building electric planes, which can be used for faster commute within cities at a similar price to road taxi and can also be used for moving cargo in remote and rural areas, the statement said.

It was founded in April 2017 and fully launched in 2019 by Professor Satya Chakravarthy and Pranjal Mehta to enable aerial mobility.

The startup is building electric planes, which can be used for 10X faster commute within cities at a similar price to road taxi and can also be used for moving cargo in remote and rural areas. ePlane has built a small scale prototype by bootstrapping, with a dedicated team of 10, and is currently expanding its team to 25.

(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)