Skyroot Aerospace Raises $51 Million In Funding Round Led By GIC India
Space tech start-up Skyroot Aerospace has raised USD 51 million or around Rs 403 crore in a funding round led by GIC India Direct Investment Group, the company said on Friday.
This is the largest funding round ever in the Indian space-tech sector, the company said in a statement.
Skyroot co-Founder and CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana said fresh capital raised will be used to fund the company's initial launches and expand the team and customer pipeline.
"We are proud to welcome one of the world's leading institutional investors as a long-term partner in our mission to ‘Open Space for All'. This round puts us on a trajectory of hypergrowth by funding all of our initial developmental launches, and enables building infrastructure to meet high launch cadence required by our satellite customers," Chandana said.
Post this funding, GIC India Direct Investment Group Managing Director Mayank Rawat will join Skyroot's Board.
With this round, Skyroot has expanded its marquee 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.
"We have validated all three propulsion technologies in our Vikram space launch vehicles, and completed a full duration test of one of our rocket stages in May 2022.
"We are also planning 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," Skyroot Co-Founder and COO Naga Bharath Daka said.
The 4-year-old Skyroot has successfully built and tested India's first privately developed cryogenic, hypergolic-liquid, and solid fuel-based rocket engines.
Rothschild & Co India are the financial advisors for this funding round.
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