Pawan Kumar Chandana grew up in a middle-class home in Visakhapatnam, struggled with academics, and once scored just 51 marks in mathematics. Two decades later, he co-founded Skyroot Aerospace, the first private space startup from India to launch a rocket, placing the country in a rare global club dominated by the US, China, and Japan.
Chandana’s journey began far from launchpads and clean rooms. As a school student, he was known more for poor grades than promise. His father refused to give up and enrolled him in IIT coaching. Something clicked. Chandana developed a genuine interest in math and science, improved rapidly, and cleared the IIT entrance exam (JEE) on his first attempt. In 2007, he joined IIT Kharagpur to study mechanical engineering.
While many of his peers chased consulting roles, foreign degrees, or high-paying jobs, Chandana fixated on rockets. In 2012, he joined ISRO straight out of campus. The pay was modest, but the work mattered to him. He performed well and imagined spending his entire career there.
That plan changed when his long-standing interest in entrepreneurship returned. Chandana wanted to build a global space company from India. At the time, private rocket launches were not allowed, and funding for space startups barely existed. In 2018, he resigned from ISRO without a safety net.
He had no startup background and no investor network. He searched online to understand how equity worked. After several dead ends, he cold-messaged Mukesh Bansal on LinkedIn. Bansal invested $1.5 million, giving Skyroot its first lifeline.
The next few years were rough. COVID slowed progress. Cash ran low. Venture funds declined to invest. Support finally came from the founders of Greenko, a renewable energy firm. Policy reform followed soon after. In 2021, the Indian government opened the space sector to private players. Skyroot became the first startup to sign an MoU with ISRO and later raised $51 million, the largest check in Indian deep-tech at the time.
On November 18, 2022, Skyroot launched Vikram-S, India’s first private suborbital rocket, reaching an altitude of 90 kilometers. The company now employs around 1,000 people, runs India’s largest rocket factory spanning 200,000 square feet, and is valued at about $527 million. Its first orbital launch, Vikram-1, is scheduled for 2026.
Skyroot’s rise shows that high-risk space technology can grow from India without inherited wealth or early policy support. If successful, it could reshape how the country participates in the global launch market and inspire a new generation to look beyond safe careers and aim higher, literally.
Story Source: This man who grew up in middle class India literally built the only startup outside US/China/Japan that sent rockets to space.