Accel is doubling down on Sarla Aviation’s ambition to develop electric air taxis in India

Sarla Aviation It was launched a year ago with a playground designed for India’s busy streets. The electric air taxi, named after India’s first female pilot, begins operation. Sarla ThukralIt will focus on aircraft that can carry more weight, even if that means shorter ranges.

“In India, shorter range is good, as long as you can offer it at an attractive price. That’s what we’re trying to achieve with this higher payload,” Adrian Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Sarla Aviation, said in an interview.

It’s a move that has reached investors. The startup said on Tuesday that it had raised $10 million in a new funding round led by Accel. The entire Series A1 round included angel investors like Binny Bansal (co-founder of Flipkart), Nikhil Kamath (co-founder of Zerodha), and Sriharsha Majety (co-founder of Swiggy). The startup previously raised a seed round worth 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, expand its team three or four times larger than its current headcount of 30 employees, and create new prototypes to capture and validate better data.

Unlike most flying taxi concepts that seat two to four passengers, the Bengaluru-based startup is looking for a vehicle that can carry six passengers and a pilot weighing up to 680 kilograms (1,500 pounds). Increasing the payload reduces the range to 160 kilometers (99 miles) per battery charge. In contrast, a typical flying taxi concept offers a range of 120 to 160 miles.

Schmidt, a German national, co-founded Sarla Aviation in January 2024 with his long-time colleague Rakesh Gaonkar and software engineer Shivam Chauhan after spending more than two years at Lilium. The Munich-based company has been building electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) regional jets for more than a decade, but after raising more than $1 billion and going public, It ceased operations last year Just to be He was resurrected Soon after by a consortium of investors. Schmidt also initially worked at automotive companies including Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen before joining Lilium in 2020.

In mid-2023, Schmidt and Gaonkar left Germany and came to Bengaluru to set up Sarla Aviation after they saw India as a potential market for their flying taxi project. They were joined by Chauhan, who returned to India after spending some time in the US, and the trio founded the startup in January 2024.

Schmidt told TechCrunch that India’s geopolitical location, which he believes “will play a major role in how power dynamics shift,” convinced him to begin his adventure in the country.

The one-year-old startup is set to showcase its first air taxi prototype, called Shunya (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 sometime in 2028.

Sarla Aviation will start its commercial airport transfer operations in Bengaluru, one of the busiest cities in the world, and will gradually move to Mumbai, Delhi and Pune, Schmidt said. It also plans to launch a free air ambulance service in parallel with commercial ride-sharing services in its first phase.

The executive claimed that Sarla Aviation’s air taxi ticket will be priced similarly to an Uber or Ola taxi ticket, which will come down to the fare that Indian riders typically pay for an auto-rickshaw over time.

The startup relies on a third-party supply chain to produce its prototypes. However, Schmidt told TechCrunch that he aims to have 80% of his supply chain entirely local around the time it begins commercial operations.

Sarla Aviation will compete with good financing Archer Aviationwhich partnered with InterGlobe Enterprises in 2023, and Electronic planewhich raised $14 million in November at a $46 million valuation. Both aim to launch flying taxis in India next year.