Anand Mahindra-backed Agnikul raises $11 million in funding round led by Mayfield India

Anand Mahindra-backed launch vehicle startup Agnikul Cosmos has raised $11 million in Series A round, which was led by the global venture capital company Mayfield India. Existing investors pi Ventures, Speciale Invest, and Artha Ventures also invested in this round.

Besides, BEENEXT, Globevestor, and LionRock Capital, and angel investors like Anand Mahindra, Nithin Kamath, Balaji Srinivasan, Naval Ravikanth, Abhishek Singhania, Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan have also backed the startup in Series A funding round.

Agnikul Cosmos tweeted after getting this funding, "Humbled to announce our Series A round led by @MayfieldFund. Grateful to our existing investors for their continued trust and to the angels for their belief in our vision. A big thanks to @isro's IN-SPACe initiative and our very hardworking crew. DeltaV boost!"

The Chennai-based launch vehicle startup, which was founded in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM, and Professor SR Chakravarthy out of IIT Madras, will allocate these funds for bolstering its technology infrastructure, expanding on ground testing efforts, and growing the team size by 25-30 per cent.

Before this, Agnikul raised $3.1 million in its Pre-Series A funding in March 2020. Managing Partner of Mayfield India Vikram Godse will also join Agnikul's board.

The startup is developing Agnibaan, which is a private small satellite launch vehicle capable of carrying around 100 kg payload to Low Earth orbits with a plug-and-play engine configuration.

The Chennai-based startup has put all its testings based on liquid oxygen on hold to ensure oxygen availability for people across the country during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad-based private space launch vehicles startup Skyroot Aerospace raised $11 million Series A funding from investors led by Greenko Group founders Anil Chalamalasetty and Mahesh Kolli.

Edited by Mehak Agarwal

Also read: Skyroot Aerospace raises $11 million, intends to raise $40 million in 3 years

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