Spacetech Startup Agnikul Cosmos raises $11 million from Mayfield India & Others
Agnikul Cosmos, a Chennai-based spacetech startup, has raised $11 million in a Series A fundraising round led by Mayfield India. Pi Ventures, Speciale Invest, and Artha Ventures were among the existing investors who took part in the round.
BEENEXT, Globevestor, LionRock Capital, and a clutch of angel investors, including Anand Mahindra, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Nithin Kamath, Abhishek Singhania, Aarthi Ramamurthy, and Sriram Krishnan, as well as Anicut Angel Fund and LetsVenture, all participated in the round.
The IIT-Madras incubated startup revealed that post-funding, Mayfield India’s managing partner Vikram Godse will be joining the board of Agnikul Cosmos.
AgniKul Cosmos Private Limited is a Chennai-based Indian aerospace manufacturer established at IIT Madras' National Center for Combustion R&D.
Srinath Ravichandran, Co-founder, and CEO of Agnikul said that the funding will be mainly deployed for expanding its team and scale up its technology and infrastructure.
“Agnikul is democratising access to space for the small satellite market, which is largely underserved globally. The team’s customer-centric approach combined with their ability to constantly innovate will help them stay ahead of the competition and build a global success story. We are excited to back Srinath and Moin on their journey to space,” says, Vikram Godse, Managing Partner at Mayfield India.
Agnikul has previously raised $3.1 million in a Pre-Series A investment round in March 2020 and a seed round of funding from Speciale Invest in 2019.
“Due to the COVID-19 situation, there have been a few delays but we are looking to launch our first mission in the second half of next year,” said Srinath.
The co-founders discussed the startup's activities during the epidemic, explaining that all liquid oxygen-based testing has been temporarily halted in order to assure oxygen distribution to individuals across the country.
“Apart from this, both of us are also connecting people to the vendors we worked with for oxygen whenever they reach out to us. We are trying to help in whichever way we can,” the co-founders explained.
“In the next two years, we want to perfect getting to orbit. This is a large effort by itself and we are keeping our focus on just this for now,” he added.
Srinath addressed the current funding trends in the spacetech industry, saying that with the opening up of the space industry and the introduction of In-SPACe, investors' mindsets have shifted and they are gradually opening up to investing in spacetech businesses.
Pixxel, a Bengaluru-based spacetech business, raised $7.3 million in seed funding from Omnivore and Techstars in March.
Agnikul Cosmos, founded in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM, and Prof SR Chakravarthy, is working on India's first private small satellite launch vehicle namely Agnibaan, capable of placing 100 kg payload into a 700 km orbit. The first commercial launch is expected in 2022.
BEENEXT, Globevestor, LionRock Capital, and a clutch of angel investors, including Anand Mahindra, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Nithin Kamath, Abhishek Singhania, Aarthi Ramamurthy, and Sriram Krishnan, as well as Anicut Angel Fund and LetsVenture, all participated in the round.
The IIT-Madras incubated startup revealed that post-funding, Mayfield India’s managing partner Vikram Godse will be joining the board of Agnikul Cosmos.
AgniKul Cosmos Private Limited is a Chennai-based Indian aerospace manufacturer established at IIT Madras' National Center for Combustion R&D.
Srinath Ravichandran, Co-founder, and CEO of Agnikul said that the funding will be mainly deployed for expanding its team and scale up its technology and infrastructure.
“Agnikul is democratising access to space for the small satellite market, which is largely underserved globally. The team’s customer-centric approach combined with their ability to constantly innovate will help them stay ahead of the competition and build a global success story. We are excited to back Srinath and Moin on their journey to space,” says, Vikram Godse, Managing Partner at Mayfield India.
Agnikul has previously raised $3.1 million in a Pre-Series A investment round in March 2020 and a seed round of funding from Speciale Invest in 2019.
“Due to the COVID-19 situation, there have been a few delays but we are looking to launch our first mission in the second half of next year,” said Srinath.
The co-founders discussed the startup's activities during the epidemic, explaining that all liquid oxygen-based testing has been temporarily halted in order to assure oxygen distribution to individuals across the country.
“Apart from this, both of us are also connecting people to the vendors we worked with for oxygen whenever they reach out to us. We are trying to help in whichever way we can,” the co-founders explained.
“In the next two years, we want to perfect getting to orbit. This is a large effort by itself and we are keeping our focus on just this for now,” he added.
Srinath addressed the current funding trends in the spacetech industry, saying that with the opening up of the space industry and the introduction of In-SPACe, investors' mindsets have shifted and they are gradually opening up to investing in spacetech businesses.
Pixxel, a Bengaluru-based spacetech business, raised $7.3 million in seed funding from Omnivore and Techstars in March.
Agnikul Cosmos, founded in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM, and Prof SR Chakravarthy, is working on India's first private small satellite launch vehicle namely Agnibaan, capable of placing 100 kg payload into a 700 km orbit. The first commercial launch is expected in 2022.
