 "Spacetech start-up Digantara raises $10mn in funding for satellite service")
Digantara, a space technology start-up, said on Tuesday it has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Indian and Southeast Asia) and Kalaari Capital.
The Series A1 round also saw participation from Global Brain, a Japan-based venture capital firm, Campus Fund, and the founders of IIFL Wealth.
The Bengaluru-based company, which got seed funding of $2.5 million from Kalaari Capital in 2021, will use the fresh capital to deploy the first phase of its surveillance satellite constellation. The money will help the company in developing its space situational awareness (SSA) service and launch it early next year. The company said that there is a pressing need for infrastructure that enables safe space operations.
Peak XV’s investment comes days after its rebranding from Sequoia India and Southeast Asia.
“We will invest heavily in launching our space tech infrastructure to track previously unobservable objects and significantly increase data points. This will empower stakeholders with comprehensive insights for efficient decision-making in an increasingly complex space environment,” said Anirudh Sharma, Digantara’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO).
“The team at Digantara is working towards creating the most advanced SSA data collection infrastructure. We believe that this will lead to significant capability in the life cycle of managing satellites, which is a rapidly growing market. We are thrilled to partner with Anirudh, Rahul and Tanveer on this journey,” said Shailesh Lakhani, MD, Peak XV Partners.
Digantara, which operates via a 30-member team of engineers, recently expanded its operations to Singapore. It has commenced the development of India’s first commercial SSA optical observatory in Uttarakhand. The firm also recently launched two missions that served as the space weather testbed.
Pixxel, a separate space technology start-up which is building a constellation of satellites for monitoring Earth, earlier this month raised $36 million from Google.