HYDERABAD: Skyroot Aerospace, which is gearing up to launch India’s first private orbital rocket Vikram-1 into space, has become India’s first spacetech unicorn with its latest funding round of around $60 million (Rs 568 crore) for a valuation of $1.1 billion.With its second pre-series C funding round, Skyroot also becomes Hyderabad’s second true blue unicorn after HR tech startup Darwinbox, which achieved this status in early 2022.The round was led by existing investors Sherpalo Ventures and GIC with participation from new investors like Blackrock managed funds, Playbook Partners and Shanghvi family office and existing ones like Greenko group founders and Arkam Ventures, among others.With this latest round, Sherpalo founder Ram Shriram, who is one of the early investors in Skyroot and is also on the board of Alphabet Inc, will be joining the Skyroot board.With this, the total funding raised by Skyroot has hit $160 million (Rs 1,515 crore). The latest funding round will help Skyroot achieve its target of one rocket per month from its new Infinity campus in Hyderabad.As part of its orbital launch ambitions, Skyroot is planning two to three rocket test launches before commercial operations begin next year, Skyroot founder Pawan Kumar Chandana said.“We are excited about the upcoming Vikram-1 launch, India’s first private orbital rocket, marking a significant milestone both for India and the global space sector. This investment signals confidence from some of the world’s reputed investors,” Chandana added.Pointing out that Vikram-1 is just weeks away from its maiden flight, he said the capital raised will go towards scaling launch cadence for Vikram-1, expanding manufacturing and developing Vikram-2 — a one-tonne class vehicle with an advanced cryogenic upper stage.The firm became India’s first private company to send a rocket to space when its successfully launched sub-orbital rocket – Vikram-S – in Nov 2022. Ram Shriram said: “Access to space is one of the key challenges of our time. Skyroot is building the foundational infrastructure for that future with the best cost-to-performance ratio in the orbital-launch industry.”The startup is positioning itself as a cab to space that will drop off satellites in unique orbits with its smaller rockets, something that larger ones like Elon Musk’s SpaceX can’t do.Terming this milestone as a defining moment for India’s private space ecosystem, Indian Space Association director general Lt Gen AK Bhatt (retd) said : “This is far more than a financial achievement. It is a symbolic coming-of-age of India’s space startup landscape and a powerful validation of the technological ingenuity, entrepreneurial ambition and commercial agility that Indian companies now bring to the global space sector.““The achievement also sends a strong signal to global investors that India has built a credible and innovation-driven space ecosystem capable of delivering world-class, cost-competitive, reliable and on-demand space solutions. As the industry looks ahead to the Vikram-1 orbital launch, this achievement will further strengthen investor confidence and accelerate India’s collective mission of securing a 10% share of the global space economy by 2033,” Bhatt added.The latest funding round comes two and a half years after it last raised US$27.5 million (approx. Rs 225 crore) in its first pre-Series C funding round led by Singapore-based global investment firm Temasek. In Sept 2022 it had brought Singapore’s Temasek to the captable when it raised $51 million (approx. Rs 403 crore).Skyroot was founded in 2018 by Chandana along with Naga Bharath Daka, both ISRO scientists who quit their jobs in their late 20s to start up and has been steadily charting its trajectory to developing and launching on-demand rockets for small satellites.
