Sarla Aviation was launched a year ago with a pitch built for India’s busy roads. The electric air taxi startup, named after India’s first female pilot, Sarla Thukral, will focus on planes that can carry more weight – even if that means shorter distances. “In India, some of the shorter ones are fine, as long as you can offer them at an attractive price. And that’s what we’re going to do with this higher payload,” said Adrian Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Sarla Aviation, in an interview. It is a field that has landed with investors. The startup said on Tuesday it raised $10 million in a new funding round led by Accel. The all-equity Series A1 round included angel investors such as Binny Bansal (founder of Flipkart), Nikhil Kamath (founder of Zerodha), and Sriharsha Majety (founder of Swiggy). The startup previously raised a seed round of around $1.7 million led by Accel and included participation from angels, including Tata Motors CTO Rajendra Petkar. Sarla Aviation plans to use the funds to build an R&D center in Bengaluru, the scale of the team three or four times larger than the current headcount of 30, and create new prototypes to get better data and validation. Unlike most flying taxi concepts that have a capacity of two to four passengers, the Bengaluru-based startup is looking at a vehicle that carries six passengers and a pilot weighing up to 680 kilograms (1,500 pounds). Increasing the charge reduces the range by up to 160 kilometers (99 miles) per battery charge. In contrast, a typical flying taxi concept offers a range of between 120 and 160 miles. Schmidt, a German national, founded Sarla Aviation in January 2024 with his colleague Rakesh Gaonkar and software engineer Shivam Chauhan after spending several years at Lilium. The Munich-based outfit has been making regional electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for more than a decade, but after raising more than $1 billion and going public, the operation closed last year only to be revived by a consortium of investors. . Schmidt also first worked in car companies, including Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen before joining Lilium in 2020. In the middle of 2023, Schmidt and Gaonkar left Germany and came to Bengaluru to set up Sarla Aviation after seeing India as a potential market for flying. taxi business. Chauhan, who returned to India after spending time in the US, joined them, and the trio joined the startup in January 2024. Schmidt told TechCrunch that India’s geopolitical position, which he believes will “play a major role in how the power dynamics shift,” convinces Sarla Aviation co-founder Shivam Chauhan, Rakesh Gaonkar, and Adrian Schmidt (left to right) (zero in Hindi), at an industry event in New Delhi on January 17. The company will begin testing prototypes later this year and plans to launch its first commercial air taxi in 2028. Schmidt said Sarla Aviation will begin commercial operations for airport transfers in Bengaluru , one of the world’s busiest cities, and is gradually rolling out to Mumbai, Delhi, and Pune.It also plans to launch a free air ambulance service parallel to the commercial ride-sharing service in the first phase. Sarla Aviation’s air taxi tickets will cost the same as the top line of Uber or Ola taxis, which will come down to the fares that Indians typically charge for auto-rickshaws, executives said. The startup relies on a third-party supply chain to produce prototypes. Schmidt, however, told TechCrunch that it aims to have 80% of the complete supply chain indigenous by the time it starts commercial operations. Sarla Aviation will compete with well-funded Archer Aviation, which partnered with InterGlobe Enterprises in 2023, and ePlane, which raised $14 million in November at a cost of $46 million. Both aim to launch flying taxis in India next year.
