By planeIndian drone startup raised $8.65 million in seed funding led by Physical Intelligence co-founder Lachy Groom, starting a drone delivery pilot project at a private hospital and working on one-cent delivery using an ultralight blended-wing aircraft.
The seed round includes existing Humba Ventures and Airbound investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, in addition to senior leaders from Tesla, SpaceX and Anduril.
Founded in 2020 by Naman Pushpa – who was 15 at the time and is now 20 – Airbound has developed an aircraft that uses a tail-sitter design (in which the drone is vertically oriented and launches vertically like a rocket) and a carbon fiber frame, with the goal of delivering packages at up to 20 times lower costs than conventional methods and significantly cheaper than existing systems delivery via drones. Instead of the more common quadcopter configuration, the aircraft uses a mixed wing shape with two propellers. This allows the plane to take off like a rocket and fly like an airplane.
Airbound is focusing on one-cent deliveries by rethinking how energy is used to transport goods, Pushp’s founder and CEO said in an interview.
Pushp told TechCrunch that electric two-wheelers are typically used to transport loads weighing lower than 3 kilograms in India, regardless that the vehicles themselves weigh about 150 kilograms (331 kilos) and cost about 2 kilos (about $0.02) per kilometer of energy. Airbound’s goal is to reduce this cost to just 10 paise (about $0.001) by using a drone called TRT, which is built specifically for small loads and eliminates the need for a human presence, reducing the total transport weight by about 30 times. This, Pushp said, translates to a 20-fold reduction in energy costs per kilometer, making one-cent drone delivery a viable end state.
“The reality is that there are an incredible amount of gaps between where drones currently are and where they could be,” the founder said. “It takes four kilograms of drone to lift a kilogram of payload, which is crazy to me. Range is a broken metric. There is no concept of aerodynamic efficiency when it comes to drones.”[right now]”
The aircraft’s rocket-like, blended-wing design eliminates the need for additional propellers and heavy moving parts, improving aerodynamic efficiency compared to conventional quadcopters. By avoiding propellers that disrupt airflow over the wing, the drone maintains a higher lift-to-drag ratio, reducing the thrust needed to stay airborne and making forward flight much more energy efficient, the founder told TechCrunch.
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The first version of the Airbound drone weighs 3.3 kilos and carries a payload of up to 2.2 kilos, and the startup is also aiming for the second version to carry a 6.6-pound payload while weighing just 2.6 kilos.
The second version prototype is expected to be ready and flying by the middle of next 12 months, with production expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027, Pushp said.
“When you enter the world of autonomy, logistics is simply a physical problem. It’s a game of performance and weight. So if you have a lower weight than anyone else and a higher efficiency than anyone else, you win,” Pushp said.
He began working on Airbound in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown, inspired by a video featuring Zipline, an on-demand drone delivery company. He submitted an early prototype — product of 2D slices held together with toothpicks and tape, then sanded to resemble a fiberglass body — to a hackathon, where he won a $500 grant. This experience led him to apply to Y Combinator, although he was not accepted. Instead, he received a $1,000 grant from the 1517 Fund in 2021, followed by a $25,000 check from Brand Capital and a $12,000 grant from Emergent Ventures.
At age 17, Pushp received a term sheet from Lightspeed, but waited until he was 18 to sign it. “It was the first legally binding document I signed,” he recalls.
The plane uses lithium-ion batteries as an alternative of the commonly used lithium-polymer battery pack. Lithium-ion batteries typically have a lifespan of 500 to 800 cycles, while lithium polymers last about 100 to 200 cycles, Pushp said.
“The biggest cost of operating these drones is the cost of replacing the batteries,” he said.
It costs Airbound $2,000 to produce the drone and £24 (about $0.27) for delivery. The startup goals to reduce delivery costs to below £5 (about $0.05) by the end of 2026. It also anticipates reaching one million deliveries per day by mid-2027, and to achieve this, it plans to increase its production capability to over 100 drones per day. This is up from the current production rate of one drone per day at the startup’s facility in Bengaluru.
Airbound has began its first pilot program with Bengaluru-based Narayana Health, under which it’ll provide medical logistics for three months with the goal of creating ten each day deliveries of medical tests, blood samples and other critical supplies.
But Airbound is also targeting other sectors, including high-speed trade, food delivery and “a few other smaller last-mile delivery areas,” the founder told TechCrunch.
Airbound also plans to expand beyond India once it reaches one million deliveries per day and enter the United States inside three years. Meanwhile, the startup is also in talks with regulatory authorities, including the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of India, to start flights soon.
To date, Airbound has raised over $10 million in total funding and employs a team of fifty people.
The latest round will help scale production capabilities and expand operations. The pilot program may also help improve services and reduce costs to higher prepare for broader market adoption in 2026, the startup says.