Airbound, an Indian aerospace company that designs and manufactures autonomous delivery aircraft, has raised $37 million in a Series A funding round, according to an announcement.
The money raised in the round, which was led by US investment firm Greenoaks, will be used to accelerate engineering, scale commercial manufacturing, and support its go-to-market initiatives, Airbound said.
The round also drew participation from food delivery company DoorDash, and US-based venture capitalist Lachy Groom, Lightspeed, and Humba Ventures, per the announcement.
The Bengaluru-based company has raised nearly $50 million since its launch in 2023. It did not disclose its valuation following the latest financing.
The startup designs and manufactures autonomous aircraft intended to transport goods at a lower cost by reducing the weight of the aircraft relative to its payload. Its target customers include logistics providers, e-commerce companies, and retailers.
“Moving goods has always forced a choice between fast and cheap,” said Neil Shah, a partner at Greenoaks. Airbound’s technology could help overcome that trade-off by combining faster deliveries with the cost efficiency of road freight, he added.
Alongside the fundraising, Airbound has signed a commercial deployment agreement with the government of Andhra Pradesh to develop a drone delivery network connecting three cities in the southern Indian state.
The network will support retail, e-commerce and healthcare deliveries, with Airbound aiming to scale operations to as many as 10,000 flights a day. The company did not disclose the financial terms, launch timetable, or cities covered by the agreement.
Founded in 2023, Airbound has completed more than 13,000 autonomous flights in Bengaluru and Guntur, including over 1,000 for the hospital network Narayana Health to transport diagnostic samples between facilities.
Airbound said the programme had reduced transportation times from hours to minutes and recorded no mission failures.
