Agnikul has raised $11 million in a Series A round, led by Mayfield India, as the space technology startup races to build and launch its first rocket next year.
The funding round, the largest by any private space tech company in the country so far, also saw participation from Beenext, Globevestor, LionRock Capital, apart from prominent angels Anand Mahindra, Naval Ravikant, Nithin Kamath and Balaji Srinivasan, among others.
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Existing investors pi Ventures, Speciale Invest and Artha Venture Fund also participated in the round.
Agnikul had raised a pre-Series A round of $3.1 million in March 2020.
The fresh capital infusion follows the Chennai-based company’s successful test firing of its fully 3D printed rocket engine ‘Agnilet’ in February, and a deal signed in December with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to use its facilities and expertise to build rockets.
“The convergence of both our product getting to a certain level and the government also coming out and helping us has really made this round possible,” said Srinath Ravichandran, co-founder and CEO of AgniKul.
“The government’s framework to encourage space companies in India has given confidence not only to investors, but also customers, vendors and others,” Ravichandran added.
Over the next few months, Agnikul is looking to complete the development and testing of its small satellite launch vehicle ‘Agniban’ which will have a flexible payload capacity of 30-300 kilogrammes, including testing of its 3D-printed lower-stage rocket engine.
While others have used 3D printing to produce parts for rocket engines, no other company has used the additive manufacturing method to print an entire rocket engine in a single piece, it said. The 3D printing will make its engines lighter and less prone to errors, it said.
Manufacturing a rocket this way is also what will allow Agnikul to provide quick, cheap and reliable rides to small satellite manufacturers in lower earth orbit, and this makes the company’s approach very customer-centric, according to Vikram Godse, managing partner at Mayfield India.
“Satellite weights are coming down and rocket sizes are going up. So, there are a large number of customers who are making small satellites that have to keep waiting for the large satellite and the large rocket players to launch, and that is not optimal for their business model. Agnikul solves that problem by providing them on-demand launches,” Godse said.
So far, Agnikul has courted about a dozen customers who are in various stages of discussions with the company.
While some are still evaluating it as a possible launch vehicle, others are tracking the company’s progress to see if they will reach their milestones to provide them with an alternative to launching into space.
“In the last couple of months, the progress we’ve made has built up quite a bit of credibility in the market. We’ve seen a lot of customers directly approach us because of the technology milestones that we’ve hit,” said Moin SPM, co-founder and COO of Agnikul.
Agnikul was the winner in the top innovator category at the ET Startup Awards 2020.
