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Drone delivery startup Skye Air Mobility is raising $9 Mn (around ₹83 Cr) in an ongoing Series B funding round led by IAN Alpha Fund, along with participation from AVNM Ventures, Faad Capital, Bajaj Capital and existing investors including Chiratae Ventures, Mount Judi Ventures, and a host of undisclosed HNIs.
The capital will be raised across two tranches with about $4 Mn expected to close this month and the remaining amount to be raised over the next three to four months, Skye Air founder Ankit Kumar told Inc42.
Founded in 2019 by Kumar, Skye Air is a drone tech company which offers last mile B2B deliveries via drones. The Delhi NCR-based startup manufactures the drones by partnering with an India-based original equipment supplier (OES). The company currently has a fleet of 33 drones, Kumar added.
With the freshly raised funds, Skye Air is planning to expand its offerings to other cities in Delhi NCR including Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad, and other parts of Delhi. Notably, the company currently operates in Gurugram with 60 established sky pods. Apart from Delhi NCR expansion, it will also expand its offerings in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.
Skye Air will infuse capital on building tech with focus on physical AI.
“It took some time to put together the entire playbook we were trying to build in Gurugram and to arrive at a model where we could test a lot of things. Once we figured out how we needed to scale, how to expand, and what kind of unit economics needed to work, and now that we’ve done that, we decided it was time to move beyond Gurugram and expand to multiple other cities,” Kumar added.
Where Skye Air Is Headed
It is pertinent to note that Skye Air currently works under B2B2C model, where D2C brands, ecommerce marketplaces, and third party logistics providers partner with the drone company to facilitate last mile product delivery.
Currently, the startup counts 12 companies including Freedo, Flipkart, The Bombay Shaving Company, Bluedart, Shiprocket, among others as its customers. These companies assign delivery to Skye Air whenever a “time-definite” delivery is required. The drone picks up the packages, sorts it at the drone station, and delivers it to the respective apartment building at the sky pod.
The package is then taken to the doorstep by individual workers aka walkers.
“It’s completely end-to-end and a synced-up system. The moment the walker reaches the doorstep, the system initiates an OTP. The consumer provides the OTP and receives the shipment. If it’s a cash-on-delivery order, the same person collects the payment. The drone’s job is to carry the package to the drone sky pod and deliver it there, after which the human remains in the loop,” Kumar said.
The company is currently focusing on tech parks and gated societies for the last mile delivery.
Skye Air began its commercial operations in 2023 after which the company recorded a net revenue of ₹1.6 Cr in FY24, around ₹3.3 Cr In FY25, and is expecting to close the ongoing fiscal year at a similar growth rate, Kumar added.
The post Exclusive: Skye Air Raises $9 Mn To Expand Last-Mile Drone Delivery appeared first on Inc42 Media.
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