Exclusive: Drone Startup Skye Air Bags $4 Mn From Mount Judi Ventures, Others

Drone startup Skye Air Mobility has raised $4 Mn (around INR 33.4 Cr) in its Series A funding round led by Mount Judi Ventures. 

The funding round also saw participation from Chiratae Ventures, Venture Catalyst, Windrose Capital, Tremis Capital, Faad Capital, Misfits Capital, Hyderabad Angels, Soonicorn Ventures, among others, the startup’s cofounder and CEO Ankit Kumar said.

The startup will use the capital primarily for product development and infrastructure expansion. It also aims to double its employee count to around 200 in the next 18 months, the CEO said. 

“The fundraise is a testament to our amazing team and the relentless hard work they put in every day to create real change in making last-mile logistics faster and more efficient. The fresh capital will help the company expand its last-mile network across Gurugram and other cities for healthcare, ecommerce and quick-commerce deliveries,” Kumar added.

Founded in 2019 by Kumar and Chandra Prakash, Skye Air is a drone delivery startup that is largely focused on sectors such as healthcare, ecommerce, quick commerce and agriculture.

The startup last raised $1.7 Mn in its seed funding round, led by Chiratae Ventures, in 2022.

It has partnered multiple Indian startups, including Dunzo, Flipkart Health+, Shiprocket and Curefoods for drone deliveries. 

Last month, Inc42 exclusively reported that Ecom Express has partnered Skye Air for drone deliveries.

Earlier this year, the startup also bagged contracts from 10 government medical institutions to deploy its drone mobility solutions. 

Under the contracts, Skye Air will enable the institutes, including six AIIMS and three regional leprosy regional centres, to employ aerial vehicles for efficient delivery of essential medical supplies in temperature-controlled boxes.

Commenting on this order, Kumar said, “We are enthused by the support and guidance, we have received from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, DGCA, AAI, district administrations and other authorities towards building drone delivery solutions which can impact millions of lives across healthcare, agriculture, ecommerce and other industries.” 

Buoyed by the Centre’s INR 120 Cr production-linked-incentive (PLI) scheme for drones and streamlined drone certification norms, a number of drone startups have spawned in the country and are seeing increasing interest from investors. 

Last month, Tamil Nadu-based drone startup Yali Aerospace secured an undisclosed amount of investment from SaaS giant Zoho to accelerate the development and deployment of its vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drones.

In the same month, another drone tech startup TechEagle raised an undisclosed amount in its bridge funding round, which was co-led by Navam Capital and Inflection Point Ventures. The round also saw participation from Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Venture Catalysts, and a clutch of high-net-worth individuals (HNIs)