Indian startup Airbound has raised $37 million in a Series A funding round led by Greenoaks, with participation from DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed and Humba Ventures, to fund the development of autonomous cargo drones. The round comes less than a year after the company raised $8.65 million in a seed round, bringing its total funding to approximately $50 million since its founding in 2023.
Airbound is betting that drones can transport some shipments at speeds and costs that compete with road transport, but it is trying to address a fundamental problem in the sector: the high cost of flight when the vehicle itself weighs a lot compared with the payload it carries.
A Payload-Focused Design
Founder and CEO Naman Pushp said the company is designing vertical aircraft that weigh less than the payload they carry. Its current TRT model weighs about 3.3 pounds and carries approximately 2.2 pounds of cargo. The next model under development is expected to weigh about 6.6 pounds and carry up to 11 pounds.
The aircraft use a rocket-like tail-sitter design: they take off and land vertically in an upright position, then transition to horizontal flight. The company says it wants to retain vertical takeoffs and landings while increasing the aircraft’s size to avoid relying on runways.
Medical Applications in Operation
Airbound has completed more than 13,000 autonomous flights in the cities of Bengaluru and Guntur in southern India. The operations included more than 1,000 flights in partnership with the Narayana Health hospital network to transport diagnostic samples between healthcare facilities.
The aircraft covers this route in about 2.5 miles in approximately seven minutes, while transporting the same samples by motorcycle can take between three and five hours, according to Pushp. The difference includes the waiting time needed to collect enough samples before transporting them by road. The partnership will also expand to include the new Banashankari hospital in Bengaluru, which was designed without an on-site diagnostic laboratory or blood bank and will rely on drones to connect with central facilities.
A Three-City Network and the Regulatory Hurdle
Airbound has signed an agreement with the government of Andhra Pradesh aimed at creating a network connecting three cities, with the ambition of eventually reaching 10,000 daily flights for retail, e-commerce and healthcare services. This level could require between 250 and 1,000 aircraft, while Pushp expects the number to be closer to 250 aircraft.
The agreement does not include a government contract or financial support; instead, the state government is working with the company on the necessary regulatory framework. Airbound intends to generate revenue from businesses that will use the network to deliver their shipments. However, the company remains largely pre-revenue, despite having more than 150 employees.
Why Does This Funding Matter?
The most important development is not the size of the round alone, but Airbound’s attempt to build an aircraft that other logistics networks can use, rather than merely operating its own delivery service. This approach could make a difference if the company succeeds in reducing the aircraft’s weight and expanding its payload, but it has not yet demonstrated that it can reach costs comparable to trucking at scale.
The company identifies the main obstacle itself: obtaining approvals for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight operations, which are necessary to operate a broad delivery network without keeping the aircraft within the operator’s visual range. Because regulatory restrictions have so far limited the conversion of test flights into significant commercial revenue, Airbound’s success will depend on regulatory and operational progress as much as on its aircraft design and new funding.