[Funding alert] Spacetech startup Skyroot Aerospace raises $11M in Series A funding

Skyroot Aerospace will be deploying these funds to grow its team and complete full development of its Vikram-1 launch vehicle

[Funding alert] Spacetech startup Skyroot Aerospace raises $11M in Series A funding

Thursday May 20, 2021,

2 min Read

Hyderabad-based spacetech startup Skyroot Aerospace has raised $11 million in Series A funding round led by Greenko Group founders Anil Chalamalasetty and Mahesh Kolli. 


The round also saw participation from the Solar Group and former WhatsApp CBO Neeraj Arora. Existing investors Mukesh Bansal, Founder of Myntra & Cure.fit; Worldquant Ventures, Graph Ventures, Sutton Capital, Vedanshu Investments, and few other angels also participated in the round.

Skyroot Aerospace

[Image Credit: Skyroot Aerospace]

According to an official statement, Anil, Mahesh, and Solar Group will be joining Skyroot’s board of directors as a part of this deal.

Speaking with YourStory, Pawan Kumar Chandana, Co-founder and CEO said, “We will be using the funds to grow our team and complete full development of Vikram-1, which involves qualification of over 100 systems which will eventually work together to build the entire launch vehicle.”

Founded in 2018, by former ISRO scientists Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, Skyroot Aerospace is developing privately built space launch vehicles. Its core product, Vikram series — named after ISRO founder Dr Vikram Sarabhai — consists of three launch vehicles developed especially for launching small satellites.


The startup also revealed its plans to raise an additional $40 million to fund its growth plans over the next few years.


“This round adds more fuel to our rocket program and will support in completing development and testing of all subsystems of our first launch vehicle Vikram-1, and strengthening our world class team. We started bookings for launches starting from mid next year, and are actively engaging global customers,” Naga Bharath Daka, co-founder and COO said in a statement.


In a joint statement, Anil and Mahesh said that the partnership is aimed at helping Skyroot become a leading space launch player across the globe.


“The next-generation technology Skyroot is building today will unlock potential for sustainability interventions, space-based research, data analytics, and telecommunications. We are confident our partnership will help them accelerate towards being a leading Space launch player globally,” Greenko Group founders said.


Edited by Anju Narayanan