Aerospace start-up Sarla Aviation, which is showcasing its air taxi prototype at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025, aims to make electric flying taxis a reality in the country by 2028. The start-up recently raised $10 million in Series A1 funding round which was led by Accel. The round also saw participation of other angel investors including Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.
Adrian Schmidt, Co-Founder and CEO of Sarla Aviation said, “ We have unveiled our full scale prototype at the Bharat Mobility Expo. We will now use the funding to develop the next set of prototypes and we will be doing heavy flight testing on them. We will also use this funding to build our state-of-the-art research & development facility that will host our growing team. We are focused on “Making-in-India” and believe India has the potential to leapfrog into the future of air travel.”
Electric flying taxis
The company aims to introduce its electric flying taxis in Bengaluru by 2028. “So in the first phase, we hope to deploy 30 electric flying taxis in Bengaluru. Then we will look at foraying in other cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. In the long-term, our focus will be to scale it up rapidly across urban regions” he added.
Sarla Aviation was founded in October 2023 by Adrian Schmidt, Rakesh Gaonkar, and Shivam Chauhan. Its prototype named Shunya, is designed to accommodate up to six passengers and can carry a maximum load of 680 kg with speeds reaching up to 250 km/h. “ It will be optimized for short trips of 20-30 km aimed to reduce travel times across congested urban areas in a sustainable and efficient manner. India is a price-sensitive market and therefore our aim is to develop a cost effective solution and make urban air mobility accessible to a wider set of consumers, ”Schmidt added.
Meanwhile, precision manufacturing firm, Sona SPEED on Sunday said it has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sarla Aviation to design and manufacture critical components for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.