What made you take the spacetech bet at a time when the industry itself was almost non-existent?
Leaving ISRO [Indian Space Research Organisation] was certainly not an obvious decision. Naga Bharath Daka [co-founder] and I had the privilege of working on launch vehicles there, and we understood first-hand both the complexity of the technology and the depth of capability India had built over decades.
What convinced us was a simple business thesis: access to space was going to become a much larger global market, driven by the rapid growth of small satellites, but launch capacity would remain constrained.
We believed there would be demand for launch vehicles that could offer customers greater flexibility, responsiveness and dedicated access to orbit.
India also had a structural advantage. We had decades of space heritage, an exceptional engineering talent pool and the ability to build highly sophisticated technology cost-effectively. What was missing was a private launch industry.
So, in 2018, when we started Skyroot Aerospace, the market in India was almost non-existent, but the opportunity we were building for was global.
We knew the policy environment would have to evolve, and that happened faster and more decisively than we could have anticipated.
How was your fundraising experience and how did you manage to overcome the challenges?
Fundraising in the early days was probably as difficult as building the technology itself.
We were proposing to build an orbital-class rocket, with no rocket to show, no revenue and no regulatory framework that clearly allowed a private company to launch one. Investors could not benchmark us against an existing company because there wasn't one.
There were periods when the runway was extremely tight. In those early days, every rupee mattered and we had to constantly prioritise what was absolutely essential to demonstrate the next technical milestone.
Our first investors were effectively backing the founders, the engineering approach and the possibility of what the sector could become, rather than conventional business metrics.
The turning point came as we began demonstrating hardware and executing increasingly complex milestones. Each successful engine test, each technology demonstration and eventually Vikram-S in 2022 reduced one layer of perceived risk.
That journey taught us something important: in deep tech, capital follows credible technical execution. You cannot talk your way through the technology. You have to keep building and demonstrating it.
Our first investors were efectively backing the founders and the possibility of what the sector could become
How did the 2020 space-sector liberalisation change things for you?
It was transformational. When we started, private participation in India's space sector was still largely restricted to being a supplier to government programmes. There wasn't a clear framework under which a private company could independently develop and launch its own rocket.
The 2020 reforms changed that. The creation of IN-SPACe [Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre] provided an institutional mechanism through which private companies could access Isro facilities, expertise and infrastructure, while also creating a clearer path for authorisations.
For a launch company, this is critical because you cannot independently recreate decades of national space infrastructure. Testing facilities, launch infrastructure, tracking networks and range systems are enormously capital intensive.
The impact of liberalisation was therefore not merely regulatory. It allowed us to move faster without having to duplicate infrastructure that India had already built.
Our experience with Vikram-S and subsequently Vikram-1 has shown how effective this model can be. We have received tremendous support from Isro, IN-SPACe and different government agencies at virtually every stage of the journey.
What role do you see Isro play in driving India’s spacetech start-up ecosystem growth?
1 August 2026
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Isro will remain one of the biggest competitive advantages for India's private space ecosystem.
It has accumulated more than six decades of knowledge, infrastructure and human capital. Private companies can now build on that foundation rather than starting from zero.
I see the relationship becoming increasingly complementary. Isro can continue to focus on ambitious national missions, frontier science and strategic capabilities, while private companies build scalable commercial products and services for India and global markets.
There is also an enormous knowledge ecosystem around Isro—experienced scientists, suppliers, testing infrastructure and engineering practices—that benefits the entire industry.
Our own journey is an example. Skyroot is a private company, but our story is deeply connected to India's public space programme. We learnt launch vehicle engineering at Isro, and Isro and IN-SPACe have subsequently enabled us with facilities and institutional support.
The strongest space ecosystems globally are not government versus private industry. They are working together. India now has the opportunity to build that model at significant scale.
The successful launch of Vikram-1 marks a shift from development to commercialisation. What is your strategy for building revenue from here?
Reaching orbit with Vikram-1 is an important transition for us. The challenge now moves to building a reliable, repeatable and scalable launch business.
Our focus is on the global small-satellite market. Satellite operators increasingly need flexibility over when they launch, where they go and how quickly they can reach orbit. Dedicated and responsive launch can address requirements that are not always served optimally by rideshare models.
The Vikram series is being developed around that opportunity.
From here, the priorities are increasing launch cadence, expanding manufacturing capacity, driving reliability through repeated missions and progressively serving a larger range of customer requirements. We are building towards a future where Skyroot can eventually conduct one launch a month.
That requires much more than rockets. It means creating an industrial system around manufacturing, supply chains, testing, launch operations and customer integration.
For us, commercialisation therefore isn't simply about selling the next launch. It is about turning rocket launches from individual engineering projects into a repeatable service.
Do you think India’s spacetech start-ups can become global powerhouses?
We are still in the very early stages of India's private space story.
A few years ago, there were very few serious private space companies in India. Today, we see companies working across launch vehicles, satellites, propulsion, Earth observation, communications, space situational awareness and downstream applications.
The larger opportunity is global. Space is becoming infrastructure for the world economy—supporting communications, navigation, climate intelligence, agriculture, logistics, defence and many others.
India has several ingredients required to become a major player: exceptional engineering talent, decades of institutional capability through Isro, competitive development costs, a large domestic market and, importantly, a policy environment that increasingly encourages private enterprise.
But ultimately, Indian companies will have to compete globally on technology, reliability, speed and cost, not simply on the fact that they are Indian. If we can do that consistently, India can create several globally significant space companies in the coming decade.
We often talk about India's share of the global space economy being relatively small. Today, I see that less as a limitation and more as an indication of the headroom ahead of us. The next phase is about converting India's extraordinary space capability into global commercial scale.
