AgniKul Cosmos in advance talks with 13 customers, says co-founder Srinath Ravichandran

By Prabhakar Chaturvedi
New Delhi [India], June 1 : Delighted over the successful launch of the Agnibaan SOrTeD (suborbital technological demonstrator), the co-founder and CEO of AgniKul Cosmos, Srinath Ravichandran revealed that the spacetech startup is "in advanced stage talks with 13 customers."
In an interview with ANI, Ravichandran spoke about Agnibaan SOrTeD, the cost of the launch, support from the ISRO and the company's financial status.
The space tech startup is in talks with entities from Europe, Japan and the USA, he told ANI.
"All of our customers are based out of Europe and Japan and in addition, a few are in the US."
Ravichandran said, "We will see some of these talks translated into the actual business contract when we launch our next flight."
Revealing the cost incurred on the launch of Agnibaan SOrTeD, he said it takes around USD 1,000 to develop such rockets, but for us it took only one-tenth (1/10) of this cost.
"We have managed to reduce the cost using our research and development (R&D). It is very affordable given the technology we chose to develop the rocket," he added.
Explaining further about the cost front, the AgniKul Cosmos co-founder said, "The cost of developing the rocket is low not because we have compromised on the quality of parts or something but because the engine is using a different technology and that is how cost reduction was possible. It is a huge reduction in the cost."
Agnibaan SorTED is a suborbital rocket which means that such launch vehicles may go into space, but then their path (or trajectory) carries them back to the Earth.
"We have built it using multiple interested technologies such as 3D printers and cryogenic technology, and we launched it from our own launchpad," he added.
Giving insights into the revenue part of the company, Ravichandran said that the company has not reached at the revenue-generating stage.
He added that the margins will be greater when it reaches the revenue-generating stage.
"Today we are in the phase of more R&D and development of technologies. That is why more money is outgoing than the revenue."
He said that the company is using the raised money from the investors to build intangible assets such as IP and technologies among others. "Once launches will start, every launch will bring a huge margin. This is how industry operates," according to the co-founder.
Incubated at IIT-Madras, Agnikul was the first Indian startup to sign an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in December 2020.
The startup has recently secured Rs 200 crore in its Series B funding round, with investments from Celesta Capital, Rocketship.vc, Artha Venture Fund, Mayfield India, and others.