Bengaluru-based Startup Digantara Raises $10 Million in Series A1 Funding Round for Advancing Space Situational Awareness
- ByStartupStory | June 20, 2023
Bengaluru-based startup Digantara has successfully secured $10 million in a Series A1 funding round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India) and Kalaari Capital. The funding round also saw participation from Japan-based VC firm Global Brain, Campus Fund, and the founders of IIFL Wealth. Digantara, focused on space situational awareness (SSA), aims to propel its Space-Mission Assurance Platform (Space-MAP) with the new capital infusion.
The primary objective of Digantara’s Space-MAP program is to enhance the safety of space operations by addressing the current limitations in tracking space debris within Earth’s orbit. At present, approximately 96% of the one million objects in orbit remain unidentified, posing potential threats to satellites and human missions.
With the fresh funding, Digantara plans to deploy the initial phase of its space-based surveillance satellite constellation. Additionally, the company aims to accelerate the development of its downstream SSA services, with the goal of deploying them by the second quarter of 2024.
Anirudh Sharma, Co-founder and CEO of Digantara, expressed excitement about the investment, stating, “We will invest heavily in launching our space tech infrastructure to track previously unobservable objects and significantly increase data points. This will empower stakeholders with comprehensive insights for efficient decision-making in an increasingly complex space environment.”
Digantara had previously secured $2.5 million in seed funding from Kalaari Capital in 2021, further supporting its mission in advancing space situational awareness capabilities.
Shailesh Lakhani, Managing Director of Peak XV Partners, commented on the potential impact of Digantara’s work, saying, “The team at Digantara is working towards creating the most advanced SSA data collection infrastructure. We believe that this will lead to significant capability in the life cycle of managing satellites, which is a rapidly growing market.”
Headquartered in Bengaluru and with a presence in Singapore, Digantara was founded in 2020 by Anirudh Sharma, Rahul Rawat, and Tanveer Ahmed. The startup boasts a team of 30 engineers with expertise spanning astrodynamics, photonics, and space weather. Digantara is developing an end-to-end solution to tackle the challenges of space operations and situational awareness. The company has also commenced the development of India’s first commercial SSA optical observatory in Uttarakhand, designed to track space debris as small as 10 cm in size orbiting Earth. Additionally, the firm recently launched two missions that served as a space weather testbed.
According to research conducted by New York-based private equity firm Insight Partners, the international space situational awareness (SSA) market is projected to experience an incremental growth value of $642.98 million between 2022 and 2028. The increasing global demand for satellite services, including communication, navigation, and Earth observation, has led to a substantial surge in the number of satellites deployed in Earth’s orbit. Consequently, there is a growing need for effective space situational awareness (SSA) systems capable of monitoring and managing these satellites to ensure safe and efficient operations.
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