Airbound, an Indian drone startup, has raised $8.65 million in seed funding led by Physical Intelligence co-founder Lachy Groom, as it begins a drone-delivery pilot with a private hospital and works toward one-cent delivery using its ultra-light, blended-wing-body aircraft.
The seed round includes participation from Humba Ventures and Airbound’s existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as senior leaders at Tesla, SpaceX, and Anduril.
Founded in 2020 by Naman Pushp — who was 15 at the time and is now 20 — Airbound has developed an aircraft using a tail-sitter design (where the drone sits vertically and launches upright like a rocket) and carbon fiber frame, aiming to deliver parcels at up to 20 times lower cost than conventional methods and significantly cheaper than existing drone delivery systems. The aircraft uses a blended-wing-body shape with two propellers, rather than the more common quadcopter configuration.
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