Skyroot Scripts History, Weekly Funding Rundown & More

Skyroot’s Historic Lift-Off

Skyroot Aerospace has become the first Indian private company to place a rocket into orbit. The successful lift-off of its Vikram-1 rocket validated the spacetech unicorn’s launch technology and other key systems, opening the door for future commercial missions.

A Historic Flight: Under Mission Aagaman, Vikram-1 successfully injected customer payloads into low Earth orbit (LEO) and completed the flight sequence needed to prove that the rocket works under real conditions. The unicorn claims that the mission validated propulsion, telemetry, avionics, guidance, navigation, control and separation systems.

With this, Skyroot joins a handful of American and Chinese companies capable of putting payloads into orbit on their own rockets.

What’s Vikram-1? Standing seven stories tall, the heavy-lift vehicle combines solid propulsion with a liquid orbital adjustment stage. The rocket also incorporates 3D-printed engines and pneumatic stage separation systems, allowing it to carry payloads of up to 480 kg to LEO and 290 kg to Sun Synchronous Orbit. 

The Road Ahead: Skyroot is already lining up its next phase. The unicorn plans more Vikram-1 launches this year, and is already working on Vikram-1U (launch by Q1 2027) and Vikram-2. But the next challenge for the startup is market execution. It now has to show that it can convert launch capability into commercial services, repeat customers, reliable cadence and sustainable revenue. 

Big Win For Startups: Nevertheless, the unicorn’s orbital launch signals that India’s spacetech ecosystem has moved beyond demonstrations, and can now independently build and test rockets. The launch is expected to bring more capital to homegrown spacetech ventures, deepen supplier confidence and encourage a new wave of private space ambitions.

As India celebrates, here is all about Skyroot clinching India’s first private orbital rocket launch…

From The Editor’s Desk

Weekly Startup Funding Rundown

• Indian startups managed to cumulatively raise about $281.4 Mn across 24 deals last week, over 3X from the $71.9 Mn raised by 17 startups in the preceding week. The weekly numbers were largely driven by Emergent’s $130 Mn unicorn round.
• AI emerged as the most-funded sector last week, attracting about $172.4 Mn across seven deals. Ecommerce was the second-most funded sector, raising about $22.7 Mn across six deals. 
• At the seed stage, startups raised $4.1 Mn across seven deals, led by AI startup Aina’s $5.5 Mn round. Meanwhile, Peak XV Partners, Y Combinator and Fireside Ventures emerged as the most active investors last week, backing two startups each. 

Bearish Week For Startup Stocks

• Markets remained largely cautious as 39 new-age tech stocks ended last week in the red, declining between 0.38% and nearly 10%. However, listed startup stocks posted gains ranging from 0.3% to nearly 30%.
• Go Digit and Zappfresh emerged as the biggest losers, while Fino Payments Bank and Zelio gained the most. Overall, the cumulative market capitalisation of 58 listed startups under Inc42’s coverage stood at $142.41 Bn as against $143.54 Bn a week ago.
• Despite the escalating tensions in West Asia, rising crude oil prices and depreciation of Rupee, investors will closely track Japan’s inflation data and India’s upcoming PMI data for market cues this week.

Snapdeal In A Legal Soup

• The Supreme Court has sought responses from the IPO-bound ecommerce giant and its directors over alleged sale of a prescription drug via the marketplace without a valid licence or doctor’s prescription. It will now hear the case next on August 10.
• The directions came on a plea filed by the Karnataka government, challenging a Karnataka HC order that quashed criminal proceedings against the company over the alleged sale of Suhagra-100, a prescription drug used to treat erectile dysfunction.
• In 2019, a Karnataka drugs inspector had filed a complaint before a judicial magistrate against Snapdeal for selling the medicine that allegedly lacked a valid drug licence. Later, the marketplace moved the HC and received a favourable order. 

Turtlemint’s Q4 Snapshot

• The recently-listed insurtech company reported its maiden quarterly net profit of ₹3.1 Cr in Q4 FY26 as against a loss of ₹39.4 Cr in the year-ago quarter. Meanwhile, operating revenue zoomed 42% YoY to ₹357 Cr during the quarter under review. 
• However, profitability came primarily on the back of a deferred tax credit of ₹8.3 Cr during the quarter under review. If not for that, Turtlemint would have reported a loss in Q4. Meanwhile, expenses for the quarter rose 23% YoY to ₹366 Cr. 
• For the full FY26, Turtlemint’s net loss declined 5% YoY to ₹184 Cr, while the top line zoomed 66% YoY to ₹1,098 Cr. It also added 1.15 Lakh digital partners, worked with 46 insurer partners across 19,000 pincodes and issued 7.83 Mn policies during the fiscal.

Meesho’s Zero-Commission Model

• Long dismissed as the less affluent cousin of India’s ecommerce giants, Meesho has turned unbranded goods into a massive business. Its secret sauce? Zero-commission model that leverages volume and its 264 Mn annual transacting users.
• Meesho also leans heavily on its in-house logistics platform, Valmo, to trim reliance on expensive third-party shipping, improve predictability and pricing control, and optimise shipment density across small-town routes.
• The ecommerce juggernaut is also aggressively dipping its toes in AI to reduce operational friction across the marketplace, lift conversion, lower merchant acquisition costs, improve discovery and help sellers list faster. 

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

Can ZeroDrag Build An Indigenous UAV Avionics Stack?

A critical bottleneck sits beneath India’s drone ecosystem scales. Core electronics and avionics are still heavily dependent on imports, raising costs and creating reliability and security risks. ZeroDrag is tackling this gap by building indigenous avionics systems for UAVs.

Component-First Strategy: Founded in 2024, ZeroDrag designs and manufactures flight controllers, electronic speed controllers (ESCs), GPS modules, ELRS receivers, video transmitters (VTXs) and complete FPV avionics stacks. Its systems are compatible with widely used firmware such as ArduPilot, Betaflight, Pixhawk and iNav, making integration easier for OEMs and system integrators.

An Integrated Stack: The startup’s modular, plug-and-play architecture is designed to support defence, industrial, autonomous and FPV drone applications. By offering local manufacturing, on-the-ground technical support and shorter lead times, ZeroDrag enables clients to derisk their supply chains while improving deployment speed.

Aiming For The Skies: Going forward, ZeroDrag plans to ramp up R&D, expand manufacturing capacity, strengthen testing and quality systems, and accelerate development of advanced UAV avionics for global markets. With the Indian drone tech ecosystem projected to become a $3.2 Bn opportunity by 2030, can ZeroDrag become the backbone for the next generation of drones?

Infographic Of The Day

From product launches to fundraising updates and hot takes, founders are increasingly turning to social media and becoming creators in their own right. So, who is winning the social media race? 

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