Indian space startup Skyroot Aerospace has raised $4.5 million in a bridge round led by one of Google’s early backers, Ram Shriram, through his venture capital (VC) firm Sherpalo Ventures.
The round was co-led by Wami Capital, with participation from former WhatsApp executive Neeraj Arora and former Google executive Amit Singhal. A bridge round is an intermediate funding round that precedes a larger funding round.
“India has long been a leader in rocket launch capabilities, especially when costs have been significantly reduced. Skyroot has taken this technological prowess to a new level with its innovative and cost-effective space launch capabilities, disrupting the current state of the global launch market,” said Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures.
The company was founded in 2018 by former Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) scientists Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka.
Skyroot Aerospace previously announced that it was in talks to raise $40 million to fund a commercial operation it plans to launch next year. The company will raise the round with new and existing investors.
The company announced an $11 million funding round in the first half of 2021, the same day its rival Agnikul raised the same amount. This is the largest round of funding raised by an Indian aerospace technology startup.
Skyroot is backed by Greenko Group founders Anil Kumar Chalamalasetty and Mahesh Kolli. Other notable investors include ex-Graph Ventures, Worldquant Ventures and Mukesh Bansal, who previously founded Myntra and Cure.fit.
The three-year-old startup is the first private Indian aerospace company to successfully test an all-cryogenic rocket engine called Dhawan-1, in honor of prominent Indian scientist Satish Dhawan.
It will not license or sell its cryogenic engine technology to any other partners, but will use it to facilitate its operations. It will partner with other companies capable of building satellites, mainly Earth observation and communications satellites, and help them launch them into space.
Hyderabad-based Skyroot claims it may be the cheapest satellite launch vehicle in the world.
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