Spacetech start-up Skyroot Aerospace on Thursday announced it has raised $4.5 million in a bridge round to its Series B. The round was led by Ram Shriram, through his venture capital firm Sherpalo Ventures, and co-led by Wami Capital, existing investor Neeraj Arora (former WhatsApp CBO), and former Google executive Amit Singhal.
Naga Bharath Daka, Co-Founder and COO of Skyroot, said, “This round helps us build critical infrastructure early on and accelerate towards our launch this year. 2022 is going to be a big year for us and the entire Indian Space ecosystem.”
Pawan Kumar Chandana, Co-Founder and CEO of Skyroot said, “We are thrilled to have support from incredible investors including one of the world’s most influential tech investors Ram Shriram, validating Skyroot’s vision and execution over the past three years. In the last 18 months, we successfully demonstrated three cutting edge propulsion technologies used in our Vikram series of Space launch vehicles, and this year will be a year of hypergrowth, where we will be testing our final rocket stages for a launch, while continuing to build a strong orderbook for the first few launches” added Pawan
“India has long been a leader in rocket launch capability, especially at significantly lower cost. Skyroot takes that technical strength to the next level, with its innovative and cost-effective space launch capability, disrupting the status quo in global launch market” said Ram Shriram, one of the first investors and board member of Google, and the founder of Sherpalo Ventures.
Skyroot had earlier raised $ 11 million in Series A round led by Greenko founders (with participation from public-listed Solar Industries India Ltd, WorldQuant Ventures, Graph Ventures & others), and 1.5 M$ Seed round funded by Mukesh Bansal in mid-2018 through his incubator Meraki Labs.
Skyroot is also the first start-up to sign an MoU with ISRO for sharing facilities and expertise.