The funding comes amid rising investor interest in India’s private space ecosystem. Last month, Digantara Industries raised $50 million, while Agnikul Cosmos raised $17 million at a valuation of about $500 million.
EtherealX’s fundraising was first reported by ET on December 18, when the company was in advanced talks for the round.
Founded in 2022 by Manu J Nair, Shubhayu Sardar, and Prashant Sharma, EtherealX is developing fully reusable medium-lift rockets capable of carrying over 20 tonnes to low Earth orbit. The startup is often positioned as a “SpaceX-like” company from India because of its focus on full reusability, in which it would bring back both the booster and the upper stages of the rocket after launch. “There are two broad technical milestones we are targeting. One is the qualification of the booster stage, and the other is the flight qualification of the upper stage,” Manu J Nair, cofounder of EtherealX, told ET.
$130 million in customer MoUs
While the company is yet to conduct its first orbital launch, it has already secured strong customer interest. “We are in late-stage discussions. We have signed launch MoUs with customers worth up to $130 million,” Nair said.
The founder added that it has focussed on onboarding the “harder customers” to use their launch vehicles. These include large government-authorised launch aggregators, launch contractors, government space agencies, and private majors.
“We deliberately did not go after research institutions or early-stage startups. We focussed on customers who have real paying capacity and who are typically very difficult to access,” Nair explained.
Currently, most medium-lift launches account for over 85% of all global launches, a figure that has risen to around 91% based on recent data, Nair said.
The company plans to fly its technology demonstrator vehicle (TDV) in 2027. The TDV will be about 35 metres tall and will include a booster stage powered by eight of its in-house Stallion engines, along with an upper stage.
The primary goal of the TDV mission is not commercial deployment but data collection. EtherealX aims to conduct the first flight of its full-scale commercial vehicle, the Razor Crest Mk-1—its flagship reusable launch vehicle—by the end of 2028, paving the way for the start of commercial launch operations.
Nair also pointed out how the launch market today is largely unipolar, led by SpaceX.
“When over 83% of global payloads are launched by a single vehicle, that’s not market dominance, it’s market dependence,” he said.
Nair believes India has a chance to help reshape that balance. “We see an opportunity to make it multipolar. India is perfectly positioned for that, geographically and technologically,” he said, adding that while multiple launch players will emerge globally, each segment is likely to be led by a few dominant platforms.
