Overview
- Skyroot, which announced the round on Thursday, secured $60 million co-led by Sherpalo Ventures and Singapore’s GIC at a $1.1 billion pre-money valuation, the first unicorn milestone for India’s private space sector.
- Sherpalo’s Ram Shriram will join the board, and funds managed by BlackRock joined participants that include Playbook Partners, the Shanghvi Family Office, the founders of Greenko Group and Arkam Ventures, bringing total funding to about $160 million.
- The company says it will use the money to boost the launch rate of its Vikram-1 rocket, expand manufacturing, and accelerate Vikram-2, a one-ton-class vehicle with a cryogenic upper stage that the company targets for as soon as 2027.
- Vikram-1 flight hardware moved to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in April, and the team is targeting a June launch window after completing flight qualification, integration and other preflight checks.
- Designed to carry up to 350 kilograms to low Earth orbit, Vikram-1 marks Skyroot’s shift from a 2022 suborbital demo to commercial orbital service as India’s post-2020 reforms open ISRO facilities to private launch companies.