Drone supply start-up Skye Air Mobility raises seed funding from Chiratae Ventures, Mamaearth, Curefit founders 

Drone supply start-up Skye Air Mobility has picked up $1.7 million in seed funding from Chiratae Ventures, with participation from Lead Angels, O2 Angels, Agility Ventures, LetsVenture, and others. Main angel traders, together with Ankit Nagori (Curefit Co-founder), Varun Alagh (Mamaearth Co-founder), Rajeev Chitrabhanu (MD-CEO of JM Monetary), amongst others additionally joined the spherical.

Skye Air, which at present operates in eight cities, needs to double its footprint within the subsequent 24 months. It plans to make use of the funds to drive higher effectivity throughout verticals, usher in sooner deliveries, scale back prices and carbon emissions, in addition to enhance accessibility to places which might be troublesome to achieve by street. Earlier in March, Skye Air had introduced that it plans to increase its fleet measurement to ~120 drones and traverse 1 million kilometres within the subsequent 12-15 months. 

“This funding comes at a time after we are intensifying our efforts to increase our providers and collaborations within the Indian market. We’re satisfied that the brand new funding will facilitate our staff to open untouched channels, permitting us to carry drone supply providers to extra clients in India and past,” Ankit Kumar, CEO, Skye Air Mobility, said. 

 “We additionally consider the funding, which is thus far the biggest within the delivery-focused drone section, is testomony to the truth that Skye Air is main the way in which of drone supply expertise within the nation with its proprietary SaaS expertise,” he added. 

Based in 2020, the Delhi-based start-up provides drones for the supply of retail and ecommerce merchandise, postal providers, and meals merchandise. It additionally gives last-mile drone supply providers for healthcare, protection, medical and ambulance provides, and navy provides. Skye Air claims to have accomplished over 2,200+ BVLOS flights delivering greater than 720,000 packages of merchandise, masking an aerial distance of 11,800+ kilometres.

Its client-partners embrace Flipkart, Dunzo, Swiggy, Redcliffe Labs, Aster Healthcare, Blue Dart, Curefoods (the place Ankit Nagori is CEO) and lots of others. “We’re excited to associate with Skye Air Mobility to disrupt the primary and final mile logistics in an environment friendly and climate-friendly method, starting with the healthcare area, and increasing into different sectors with its logistics and SaaS options,” Mandeep Julka, Vice President – Investments, Chiratae Ventures, mentioned in a press release. 

The brand new drone guidelines and PLI scheme launched by the federal government have been a shot within the arm for homegrown drone start-ups. The Indian drone supply business may probably develop to $18 billion as per estimates. 

Dhianu Das, Founder, Agility Ventures, mentioned, “Drone supply is more and more gaining floor throughout logistics suppliers to deal with inefficiencies in last-mile supply, and is predicted to develop at greater than 50 per cent CAGR over the subsequent six years. We consider Skye Air has a head begin in the identical and is poised to be a frontrunner within the business.”

Additionally learn: Early Flipkart backer Chiratae Ventures marks first shut of maiden progress fund at Rs 759 cr