Skyroot Aerospace raises $51 Million led by GIC to propel the new future of small satellite launches

Space Daily

2 years ago

Space-tech startup Skyroot Aerospace from India, successfully raised US$51 million Series-B funding round led by GIC, a leading global investment firm. This is the largest funding round ever in the Indian private Space-Tech sector, which validates Skyroot’s strengths in space technology and helps meet the burgeoning demand from the international small satellite markets.

As part of the investment, Mayank Rawat, Managing Director of GIC India Direct Investment Group, will join Skyroot’s Board.

“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 hyper-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 best-in-class 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.

“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’22. 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”, said Naga Bharath Daka, Co-Founder and COO of Skyroot.

Critical steps in the development of Skyroot’s commercial space launch vehicles have been accomplished. The flagship Vikram series of launch vehicles named after Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of India’s space program. Vikram Series rockets are uniquely built with an all-carbon-fiber structure, and can launch upto 800 kg of payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO)

With a strong tech team of cumulative 1000+ years of experience in the rocket industry, Skyroot is envisioning a world where space flight is as affordable, regular, and reliable as air flight. Skyroot is the first startup to sign an MoU with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for sharing facilities and expertise.

Skyroot marquee shareholder base now includes Google board member Ram Shriram’s Sherpalo Ventures, Neeraj Arora (Former-WhatsApp Global Business Chief) and leading Indian entrepreneurs Mukesh Bansal, Greenko Group founders Anil Chalamalasetty and Mahesh Kolli and others.

The 4-year-old Skyroot has successfully built and tested India’s first privately developed cryogenic, hypergolic-liquid, and solid fuel-based rocket engines; the R and D and production activities extensively use advanced composite and 3D-printing technologies.

According to a recent market survey, the global space launch services market is projected to grow from $14.21 billion in 2022 to $31.90 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 12.25% in forecast period.

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