Indian Space Tech Company ‘Pixxel’ Raises $5 Million

Pixxel, in its first 18 months, has raised the largest seed funding of $5 million with an aim to send Indian satellites into space. This can also be said as the first of its kind investment into this sector from venture capitalists like Lightspeed India and Blume Ventures.

The startup, started by 22-year-old Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal, plans to send its first Earth-imaging satellite into space in the month of November. Venture capitalists like GrowX Venture, Inventus Capital India, Stanford Angels, and Ryan Johnson, have also put their contribution into the fundraising.

The space tech startup has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) and letters of intent with big agriculture and oil & gas firms in India and the US, who would bring into use the image data. The capital raised would be brought into use to get the satellites into space and also build its proprietary data platform.

“Satellite has been manufactured and it’s being tested right now. We are working on a second satellite as well, which we plan to fly in the second half of next year,” said Ahmed.

Pixxel would run its operations across Bengaluru and Chennai, moving all its operations to the capital of Karnataka, he added. Ahmed said.  It has two Indian clients and eight more globally, across the US and Europe.

The Space tech, as a sector, has seen an increment in the entrepreneurial action as demand for imaging-tech is seen growing across sectors, and it is getting cheaper to make and launch small satellites.

Currently, there are 15 to 20 startups operating in the space tech sector compared to what it used to be a few years ago, industry executives said. “There are a handful of founders building path-breaking technologies across launch, communication, and satellites —a validation of this is to see Lightspeed invest in Pixxel,” Speciale Invest managing partner Vishesh Rajaram said.

Chennai-based Agnikul prior to this has raised over $3 million in a pre-Series-A round in March from hardcore tech investors Pi Ventures and Speciale Invest. Bengaluru-based Bellatrix last year too raised around $3 million in pre-Series-A funding led by IDFC-Parampara, StartupXseed, and also Bollywood celebrities like Deepika Padukone who were among others.