Airbound, an Indian startup focused on autonomous drones, has secured $37 million in new funding as it aims to make aerial goods transportation as cost-effective as road trucking.
The Series A funding round was led by Greenoaks, with contributions from DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed, and Humba Ventures. This comes less than a year after Airbound’s initial $8.65 million seed funding, bringing its total capital raised to nearly $50 million in three years.
Airbound and other firms in this emerging industry contend that drones can deliver certain goods more swiftly and affordably than traditional vehicles. Despite successful trials, drone deliveries have yet to reach the scale and flexibility of trucking.
To bridge this gap, Airbound is reengineering its aircraft to better compete with ground transportation.
Traditional aircraft expend significant energy carrying their own weight, making them costly for smaller loads. Airbound’s solution involves creating vertical-flight drones that weigh less than their payload, according to founder and CEO Naman Pushp.
The current Airbound drone, named TRT, weighs approximately 3.3 pounds and can transport about 2.2 pounds. The next model under development is expected to weigh 6.6 pounds and carry up to 11 pounds, as Pushp shared with JS.
The drones utilize a rocket-like, tail-sitter design that allows for vertical takeoff and landing before transitioning to horizontal flight. Pushp stated that Airbound plans to maintain this vertical capability even as they develop larger drones, eliminating the need for runways.
“We want to build towards a world where everything has cost parity with trucking,” he said.
Since its founding in 2023, Airbound has conducted over 13,000 autonomous flights in the southern Indian cities of Bengaluru and Guntur, as reported by Pushp. These flights include more than 1,000 missions for the Indian hospital network Narayana Health, transporting diagnostic samples between facilities.
The startup employs a single active drone on the Narayana route, covering about 2.5 miles in seven minutes. In contrast, the same samples take three to five hours by two-wheelers, accounting for the time spent waiting to bundle enough samples for road transport, according to Pushp.
This collaboration is expanding to include Narayana’s new Banashankari hospital in Bengaluru, which lacks an on-site diagnostic lab or blood bank and will use Airbound’s drones to connect with centralized facilities.
Three-city drone network
Airbound aims to create a drone delivery network linking three cities in Andhra Pradesh. The startup has signed an agreement with the state government, targeting 10,000 flights a day for retail, e-commerce, and healthcare deliveries. This goal will require between 250 and 1,000 aircraft, depending on the route lengths, though Pushp anticipates the number closer to 250.
The agreement does not include a government contract or subsidy. Instead, the Andhra Pradesh government is collaborating with Airbound on regulatory frameworks necessary for the network, while the startup plans to generate revenue from companies using its delivery services.
Other Indian startups like Skye Air Mobility and TSAW Drones are already venturing into aerial logistics, with drone manufacturers such as Garuda Aerospace exploring delivery applications. Nonetheless, Pushp emphasizes that Airbound’s goal is to manufacture aircraft for other logistics networks, rather than becoming the largest delivery provider.
“That’s the Boeing role — the aircraft airlines everywhere rely on, not the airline itself,” he said.
Airbound produces its aircraft at a 43,000-square-foot facility in Bengaluru, maintaining control over airframe and core system production. Although Pushp did not reveal production capacity or the number of aircraft built, he assured that manufacturing would not hinder Airbound’s growth.
Pushp identified regulatory approvals, particularly for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations, as the main obstacle. These certifications allow drones to fly beyond the operator’s direct line of sight, crucial for scaling delivery networks.
These regulatory challenges have also restricted Airbound’s ability to generate significant commercial revenue. Despite having over 150 employees, the startup remains largely pre-revenue.
“The goal is to be a giant in a few decades, not to make revenue as soon as we can,” Pushp said.
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