Sarla Aviation launched one year ago with a pitch built for India’s congested streets. The electric air taxi startup, named after India’s first woman pilot, Sarla Thukral would focus on aircraft that can carry more weight — even if that means shorter ranges.
“In India, a shorter range is fine, as long as you can offer it at an attractive price point. And that’s what we’re trying to achieve with this higher payload,” said Adrian Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Sarla Aviation, in an interview.
It’s a pitch that has landed with investors. The startup said Tuesday it raised $10 million in a fresh funding round led by Accel. The all-equity Series A1 round included angel investors such as Binny Bansal (Flipkart co-founder), Nikhil Kamath (Zerodha co-founder), and Sriharsha Majety (Swiggy co-founder). The startup previously raised a seed round of around $1.7 million, led by Accel and included participation angels, including Tata Motors CTO Rajendra Petkar, before the fresh investment.
Sarla Aviation plans to use the funds to build an R&D center in Bengaluru, scale its team three or four times greater than its current headcount of 30, and create new prototypes to get better data and validate it.
Unlike most flying taxi concepts that have two- to four-passenger capacity, the Bengaluru-based startup is looking at a vehicle carrying 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 between 120 and 160 miles.
Schmidt, a German citizen, co-founded Sarla Aviation with long-time colleague Rakesh Gaonkar and software engineer Shivam Chauhan in January 2024 after spending over a couple of years at Munich-based Lilium, which was building regional electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for over a decade but eventually shut down its operations last year — after raising more than $1 billion before going public — and was resurrected by a consortium of its investors in December. Schmidt also initially worked at automobile 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 their flying taxi venture. Chauhan, who was back in India after spending time in the U.S., joined them, and the trio incorporated the startup in January 2024.
Schmidt told TechCrunch that India’s geopolitical position, which he believes would “play a major role in how power dynamics shift,” convinced him to begin his venture 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 start testing prototypes later this year and plans to launch its first commercial air taxi sometime in 2028.
Schmidt said Sarla Aviation will start its commercial operations for airport transfers in Bengaluru, one of the world’s most congested cities, and gradually roll into Mumbai, Delhi, and Pune. It also plans to launch a free air ambulance service parallel to commercial ride-sharing services in its first phase.
Sarla Aviation’s air taxi ticket would be priced similarly to the top-line of an Uber or Ola cab, which will come down to the fare Indian riders typically pay for an auto-rickshaw over time, the executive claimed.
The startup relies on a third-party supply chain for producing its prototypes. Schmidt, however, told TechCrunch it aimed to have 80% of its supply chain fully indigenous around the time of starting commercial operations.
Sarla Aviation will compete with well-funded Archer Aviation, partnered with InterGlobe Enterprises in 2023, and ePlane, which raised $14 million in November at a $46 million valuation — both aim to launch flying taxis in India next year.
