Meet IITian who quit ISRO to build Rs 1300 crore company that may rival Elon Musk's Rs 12,50,000 crore giant one day

Elon Musk's journey to becoming the world's richest man was paved on the success of two companies, his electric car brand Tesla and rocket company SpaceX. Being an early mover primed him to reach massive valuations. In India, a similar opportunity was identified by Pawan Kumar Chandana, an alumnus of IIT and an ex-employee of ISRO. Together with fellow IITian and ex-ISRO colleague Naga Bharat Daka, he co-founded India’s first private space company Skyroot Aerospace. The company has built India’s first private rocket Vikram-S.

Chandana’s Skyroot uses ISRO’s services for before and during launch purposes like integration facility, launchpad, range communications, and tracking support for a “reasonable” fee. The Vikram-S rocket was launched from Sriharikota on November 18, 2022 carrying three small satellites. All the systems in the Vikram-S rocket have been designed in-house, apart from a few imported sensors. They have also developed Vikram-1 and Vikram-2 rockets. The rockets are named 'Vikram' as a tribute to the father of India’s space program Dr Vikram Sarabhai.

Pawan Kumar Chandana founded the Hyderabad-based private space company after spending 6 years with ISRO as a scientist. Skyroot has raised $95 million till date. The most recent was a pre-Series C funding by Temasek worth Rs 225 crore ($27 million). The firm was earlier valued at around Rs 1,304 crore (around $165 million) during Series B round in 2022. Skyroot is the leading player in the Indian private space sector, which is estimated to be a $100 billion market by 2040.