In a post on X, Goyal said that the acquisition is LAT Aerospace’s first move towards building indigenous defence capabilities alongside its long-term plan to develop civil aviation platforms from India.
“Civil aviation and defence are often viewed as separate sectors. But the core technology stack is shared across autonomy, perception, sensing, navigation, guidance, and control systems. By bringing Sharang Shakti into LAT, we are building these capabilities in-house, from first principles, with the intent to deploy them across both defence and civil programs over time,” Goyal wrote.
In a separate post, Das wrote: “This is our first step toward building deep indigenous defence capabilities, grounded in the same core technologies that power next-gen civil aviation.”
Sharang Shakti, founded in 2023 by four IIT Delhi graduates, raised around $600,000 in seed money in 2024, and is backed by the likes of AUM Ventures and Venture Highway (which merged with General Catalyst in June 2024).
Das, who left Zomato in November 2023, cofounded LAT Aerospace in early 2025 with Goyal. The Zomato-founder has invested $20 million in the company. ET first reported this on March 12 last year.
LAT Aerospace plans to build eight-seater, low-cost, short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft focussed on regional connectivity. ET also reported earlier that the company is also in talks to raise another $50 million in seed funding.
In November, the company moved to a 50,000-square-feet research and development (R&D) facility in Gurugram, and began setting up in-house labs for building airplane components, including powertrains and HIL (hardware-in-the-loop) systems.
Also Read: Bringing decade-old idea to life: Deepinder Goyal on aerospace startup with ex-Zomato exec