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At 12:05 pm on 18 July 2026, a rocket called Vikram-1 lifted off from Sriharikota and flew itself into orbit. It was not built by ISRO. It was built by Skyroot Aerospace, a Hyderabad startup founded by two former ISRO scientists, and it made India one of the few countries where a private company has reached orbit at all. ISRO called it a grand success. Three months on, the obvious question is: who else is out there, and what are they building?
India now has about 440 space-tech startups registered on the government’s Start-up India portal, and private funding in the sector had crossed $618 million by March 2026, up from about $100 million in 2021-22. Here is a plain-English map of who is who after Vikram-1.
The launchers: putting things up
Skyroot Aerospace is the name of the moment. Founded in 2018 by Pawan Chandana and Bharath Daka, it is India’s best-funded space startup at roughly $150 million raised, according to Tracxn. Vikram-1 is a small launcher: it carries a few hundred kilograms to low Earth orbit, aimed at the booming small-satellite market that SpaceX’s rideshare flights currently serve. The debut was not flawless: ground stations lost contact with the rocket for a tense two minutes, as the founders later told India Today. It reached its orbit anyway.
Agnikul Cosmos, incubated at IIT Madras, is the other rocket maker to watch. Its calling card is the Agnilet, a rocket engine that is 3D-printed as a single piece, and it flew a suborbital test of its Agnibaan rocket in May 2024. An orbital flight is the next milestone. The global comparison is Rocket Lab in the US: small, frequent, dedicated launches for small satellites.
The satellite makers: looking down
Pixxel builds hyperspectral satellites: cameras that see in hundreds of colours, letting customers spot crop disease, mineral deposits or pollution from orbit. In September 2026 it raised a $100 million Series C, the single largest funding round by an Indian space startup, backed by Temasek. Bengaluru-based GalaxEye is building satellites that combine radar and optical imaging, so they can see through clouds. Dhruva Space in Hyderabad builds satellite platforms and the deployers that release satellites from rockets.
Digantara does something less obvious and very valuable: space situational awareness, which means tracking the junk and satellites already in orbit so nothing collides. Think of it as air traffic control for space. Mint reported in September 2026 that Digantara, Pixxel and GalaxEye, having won government contracts at home, are now chasing overseas customers and eyeing $100 million each in revenue by 2029.
Four years ago, India had a space programme. Today it has a space industry.
The enablers: rules and money
None of this happens without IN-SPACe, the regulator-cum-promoter that lets private companies use ISRO’s facilities and licenses their missions. By August 2026 it had granted 113 authorisations to 52 companies. The government has also approved a Rs 1,000 crore venture capital fund dedicated to space startups, and ISRO’s commercial arm NSIL transfers technology to industry. A new spaceport is coming up at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu for smaller rockets.
The fix: the hardest part of spacetech is not the science, it is the business model. The companies making real revenue sell data and services, not hardware: images, analytics, tracking, launch slots. If you are evaluating a space startup, ask who pays every month, not how cool the satellite is.
What to watch next
The next twelve months decide whether Vikram-1 was a moment or a market: Skyroot flying again and winning paying customers, Agnikul’s orbital attempt, Pixxel deploying more of its constellation, and the new spaceport taking shape. This is one corner of the wider deeptech build-out we mapped in Deeptech Rising, and the government money behind it connects to the schemes we broke down in Free Government Money.
Five things to watch over the next twelve months:
- Skyroot’s second flight: one launch is history; two is a business.
- Agnikul’s orbital attempt: the 3D-printed engine approach gets its real test.
- Pixxel’s constellation: more hyperspectral satellites means daily, not weekly, images of Earth.
- The Kulasekarapattinam spaceport: a dedicated small-rocket site takes pressure off Sriharikota.
- Foreign customers: the moment a non-Indian satellite flies on an Indian private rocket, the market changes.
For founders and engineers, the second-order effect is bigger than any single company: a domestic launch industry pulls along suppliers of valves, composites, sensors and software, the way the auto industry built Bharat Forge and Bosch India. The 440 startups are the visible tip. The supply chain underneath them is where much of the quiet opportunity sits.
It is also worth saying what Vikram-1 was not. It does not compete with ISRO’s big rockets, and it is not meant to. It competes in a global market for launching small satellites quickly and on schedule, the way a taxi competes with a bus. The bus (ISRO’s PSLV, or SpaceX’s rideshare) is cheaper per kilogram but leaves on its own timetable. The taxi costs more and leaves when the customer needs it. That is the business Skyroot and Agnikul are both chasing, and it is a real, growing one.
Your turn: which Indian space startup would you bet on for the next five years, and why? Tell us in the comments. And for one plain-English read like this every week, join the Weekly Founder Brief, foundNXT’s free newsletter. Sign up below.
Sources
- ISRO: first private orbital launch lifts off from Sriharikota (Jul 2026)
- SpaceNews: Skyroot reaches orbit on first Vikram-1 launch (Jul 2026)
- India Today: Skyroot founder recalls the tense two minutes (Jul 2026)
- PIB: private space funding reaches $618.5 million by March 2026 (Jul 2026)
- Inc42: India’s spacetech dreams enter the commercialisation phase (Sep 2026)
- Mint: India’s satellite makers eye $100 million each by 2029 (Sep 2026)
- Tracxn: India SpaceTech report (2026)
