Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace became South Asia's first space-tech unicorn on Thursday, crossing the $1 billion valuation mark with fresh funding from GIC, Sherpalo Ventures, and BlackRock, according to Reuters.
For a country where 1.4 billion people often see innovation as the domain of government labs, this is a watershed moment. Private space technology has arrived in India.
Founded by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) engineers, Skyroot designs and manufactures small satellite launch vehicles. The startup successfully launched its first rocket, Vikram-S, in November 2022, becoming the first Indian private company to reach space.
The new funding round values the company at $1.05 billion, making it the first unicorn in India's nascent private space sector. This comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government opened space launches to private players in 2020, ending ISRO's decades-long monopoly.
"A billion people aren't a statistic - they're a billion stories. And this is the story of Indian engineers who left secure government jobs to bet on private innovation," industry observers noted.
Skyroot competes in the global small satellite launch market, targeting the growing demand for launching communications, earth observation, and navigation satellites. The company plans to launch its first commercial orbital rocket, Vikram-1, later this year.
Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC led the latest funding round, joined by Silicon Valley's Sherpalo Ventures and asset manager BlackRock. Existing investors including Greenko Group also participated.
The valuation represents a major vote of confidence in 's space economy, which the government projects could reach , up from $9.6 billion in 2020. With SpaceX dominating global launch services and China expanding its commercial space sector, 's private players face intense competition.
