On July 18, 2026, Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 reached a 450-km orbit from Sriharikota — the first privately built Indian rocket to do so, after a 35-minute launch hold.
The company was founded in 2018 by Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, both ISRO scientists who quit to build a private launch company, at a time when Indian investors — used to funding software — saw rockets as too risky to touch. The first check came from Mukesh Bansal (Myntra, Cult.fit): ₹12 crore, when nobody else would write it.
Six years on: Vikram-S became India’s first privately built rocket to reach space in November 2022. In May 2026, Skyroot raised $60 million in a round co-led by Sherpalo Ventures and GIC, taking total funding to $160 million and its valuation to $1.1 billion — India’s first space-tech unicorn, weeks before Vikram-1 reached orbit.
The bet that looked riskiest in 2018 — that India’s private sector could out-execute a state space agency on cost and speed — is the one that just delivered the country’s first private orbital launch.
(Sources: Business Standard (May 7, 2026) · SpaceNews · Orbital Today (May 8, 2026) · SpaceDaily (Jul 18, 2026))