Indian company Airbound received $8.65 million to build missile-like drones in exchange for one-cent deliveries

By airan Indian drone startup, has raised $8.65 million in seed funding led by Physical Intelligence co-founder Lachy Groom, embarking on a drone delivery pilot program with a private hospital and working to deliver a dime with its ultra-light, hybrid-wing aircraft.

The seed round includes participation from Humba Ventures and existing Airbound investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as senior leaders at Tesla, SpaceX and Anduril.

Founded in 2020 by Naman Pushp — then 15 and now 20 — Airbound has developed a drone using a tailback design (where the drone sits vertically and launches upright like a rocket) and a carbon fiber frame, with the goal of delivering packages up to 20 times less expensive than traditional methods and much cheaper than current drone delivery systems. The aircraft uses a hybrid fuselage shape with two propellers, rather than the more common quadcopter configuration. This enables the aircraft to take off like a rocket and fly like an airplane.

Airbound is targeting 1-cent deliveries by rethinking how energy is used to move goods, founder and CEO Bushb said in an interview.

Two-wheeler electric vehicles in India are typically used to deliver loads weighing less than 3 kilograms, Pushp told TechCrunch, though the vehicles themselves weigh about 150 kilograms (331 pounds) and cost about 2 rupees (about $0.02) per kilometer of energy. Airbound aims to bring this cost down to as low as 10 pesos (about $0.001) with its drone, called TRT, which is specifically designed for small payloads and eliminates the need for a human driver — reducing the total weight of transportation by about 30 times. That translates to a 20-fold reduction in energy cost per kilometre, making 1-cent drone delivery a possible end state, Bushp said.

“There is actually an incredible amount of gaps between where drones are today and where they could be,” the founder said. “You need four kilograms of drone to lift one kilogram of payload, which is crazy to me. Range is a broken scale. There is no concept of aerodynamic efficiency with drones (at the moment).”

The aircraft’s rocket-like, swept-wing design eliminates the need for additional propellers and heavy moving parts, improving aerodynamic efficiency compared to traditional quadcopters. By avoiding propellers that disrupt airflow over the wing, the drone maintains a higher lift-to-drag ratio, reducing the amount of thrust needed to stay aloft and making forward flight significantly more energy efficient, the founder told TechCrunch.

The first version of the Airbound drone weighs 3.3 pounds and carries a payload of up to 2.2 pounds, and the startup also aims for its second version to support a payload of 6.6 pounds while weighing just 2.6 pounds.

The prototype for the second version is expected to be ready and flying by the middle of next year, with production targeted for the first quarter of 2027, Bushb said.

“When you get into autonomous driving, logistics becomes just a physics problem,” Bushp said. “It’s a game of efficiency and weight. So, if you have less weight than everyone else and higher efficiency than everyone else, you win.”

He started working on Airbound during the coronavirus lockdown in 2020, inspired by a video by Zipline, the on-demand drone delivery company. He submitted an early prototype — made of 2D strips held together using toothpicks and tape, then smoothed to resemble a fiberglass body — to a hackathon, where he received a $500 grant. This experience prompted 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 17, Pushp received a term sheet from Lightspeed, but waited until his 18th birthday to sign it. “That was the first legally binding document I signed,” he recalls.

The aircraft contains lithium-ion batteries, instead of the commonly used lithium-polymer batteries. Lithium-ion batteries have a cycle life of 500 to 800 cycles, while lithium polymer lasts for about 100 to 200 cycles, Bushp said.

“The biggest cost of operating these drones is the battery replacement costs,” he said.

The Airbound drone costs US$2,000 and INR 24 (about US$0.27) per delivery. The startup aims to bring the cost of delivery to less than 5 Indian rupees (about 0.05 US dollars) by the end of 2026. It also expects to reach 1 million deliveries per day by mid-2027, and to achieve this, it plans to increase its manufacturing capacity to more than 100 drones per day. This is higher than the startup’s current production rate of one drone per day at its facility in Bengaluru.

Airbound has started its first pilot program with Narayana Health in Bengaluru, through which it will provide medical logistics services for three months, with the aim of completing ten daily deliveries of medical tests, blood samples and other vital supplies.

However, Airbound is also targeting other verticals including express commerce, food delivery, and “some other smaller areas of last-mile delivery,” the founder told TechCrunch.

Airbound also plans to go beyond India after reaching 1 million deliveries per day and enter the United States within three years. Meanwhile, the startup is also in talks with regulators including the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of India to begin its flights soon.

To date, Airbound has raised over $10 million in total funding, and has a team of 50 people.

The latest round will help expand its manufacturing capabilities and expand its operations. The startup said the pilot will also help improve its services and reduce costs to better prepare for broader market adoption in 2026.