Drone delivery start-up Skye Air Mobility raises seed funding from Chiratae Ventures, Mamaearth, Curefit founders 

Drone delivery start-up Skye Air Mobility has picked up $1.7 million in seed funding from Chiratae Ventures, with participation from Lead Angels, O2 Angels, Agility Ventures, LetsVenture, and others. Leading angel investors, including Ankit Nagori (Curefit Co-founder), Varun Alagh (Mamaearth Co-founder), Rajeev Chitrabhanu (MD-CEO of JM Financial), among others also joined the round.

Skye Air, which currently operates in eight cities, wants to double its footprint in the next 24 months. It plans to use the funds to drive greater efficiency across verticals, bring in faster deliveries, reduce costs and carbon emissions, as well as improve accessibility to locations that are difficult to reach by road. Earlier in March, Skye Air had announced that it plans to expand its fleet size to ~120 drones and traverse 1 million kilometres in the next 12-15 months. 

“This investment comes at a time when we are intensifying our efforts to expand our services and collaborations in the Indian market. We are convinced that the new funding will facilitate our team to open untouched channels, allowing us to bring drone delivery services to more customers in India and beyond,” Ankit Kumar, CEO, Skye Air Mobility, stated. 

 “We also believe the investment, which is so far the largest in the delivery-focused drone segment, is testament to the fact that Skye Air is leading the way of drone delivery technology in the country with its proprietary SaaS technology,” he added. 

Founded in 2020, the Delhi-based start-up offers drones for the delivery of retail and ecommerce products, postal services, and food products. It also provides last-mile drone delivery services for healthcare, defense, medical and ambulance supplies, and military supplies. Skye Air claims to have completed over 2,200+ BVLOS flights delivering more than 720,000 packages of products, covering an aerial distance of 11,800+ kilometres.

Its client-partners include Flipkart, Dunzo, Swiggy, Redcliffe Labs, Aster Healthcare, Blue Dart, Curefoods (where Ankit Nagori is CEO) and many others. “We are excited to partner with Skye Air Mobility to disrupt the first and last mile logistics in an efficient and climate-friendly manner, beginning with the healthcare domain, and expanding into other sectors with its logistics and SaaS solutions,” Mandeep Julka, Vice President - Investments, Chiratae Ventures, said in a statement. 

The new drone rules and PLI scheme introduced by the government have been a shot in the arm for homegrown drone start-ups. The Indian drone delivery industry could potentially grow to $18 billion as per estimates. 

Dhianu Das, Founder, Agility Ventures, said, “Drone delivery is increasingly gaining ground across logistics providers to tackle inefficiencies in last-mile delivery, and is expected to grow at more than 50 per cent CAGR over the next six years. We believe Skye Air has a head start in the same and is poised to be a leader in the industry.”

Also read: Early Flipkart backer Chiratae Ventures marks first close of maiden growth fund at Rs 759 cr