‘First cheque is never just capital, it’s belief’: Skyroot’s Pawan Kumar on angel investor Mukesh Bansal

Days after its historic success, Skyroot Aerospace cofounder Pawan Kumar Chandana publicly thanked angel investor Mukesh Bansal for backing the spacetech startup at a time when Indian private spaceflight was still an unproven idea.

In a LinkedIn post, Chandana recalled how the relationship began eight years ago with a cold message on the platform.

“He became Skyroot’s first investor with a ₹10 crore cheque. At the time, there was no space policy. No proof that we could build an orbital rocket. Immense technology risk. And every reason to say no. Yet he looked beyond the uncertainty,” Chandana wrote.

Chandana said Bansal trusted the founding team and gave them room to make their own calls while staying available to mentor them. “The first cheque is never just capital. It is belief,” Chandana noted.

On Saturday, Skyroot Aerospace became the first Indian private company to place a rocket in orbit. The successful orbital mission, Aagaman, has put Skyroot in a small group of private companies globally with orbital launch capabilities. It follows the startup’s sub-orbital Vikram-S launch in 2022.