In seed funding led by Blume Ventures, Lightspeed India, and GrowX Ventures, Bengaluru-based space technology startup Pixxel has raised $5 million as it readies its first earth imaging satellite for launch into low-Earth orbit this November.

This funding would be utilized by the company to launch its first satellite in November. Also, it is expected that they would be building and launching its second satellite somewhere in the mid-2021.

If we talk about the company, it was established last year (2019) by  Kshitij Khandelwal and Awais Ahmed. Also, it has come to the picture that the part of the funding would be used to build its proprietary data platform for analysis of satellite images.

“The reason we raised $5 million is it provides us enough capital for a couple of backup launches in case the first one doesn’t go well,” said Awais Ahmed, co-founder and CEO of Pixxel. “It’s also enough money for us to achieve our next milestone of having hardware up in space and generating enough business traction to go out and get customers.”

“Pixxel has identified a unique opportunity in the remote sensing space, to solve huge problems across industries that have never been tackled before,” said Sanjay Nath, Managing Partner at Blume Ventures. “The time for space tech is now, driven by many tailwinds - the proliferation of micro satellites, reduced launch costs, and the need for more real-time deep intelligence on our planet.”

Including Agnikul, Bellatrix and Skyroot, Pixxel is now one among a handful of space-tech startups in India who are being backed by traditional startup investors. 

These investors have begun to actively look at the sector as there are numerous openings in the market for satellites and launch vehicles.