From Aerostrovilos to Bellatrix Aerospace: Deeptech startups, one year on

Ati Motors

At Ati Motors, which makes autonomous mobile robots for factories, warehouses and industrial complexes, in the last six months, customers have begun to use the Bengaluru startup’s products in every market the venture targeted, including the US, India and Southeast Asia.

“The US traction has especially been very good and we have succeeded in putting a team in place with an office in Detroit,” CEO Saurabh Chandra says. Overall, the number of Ati’s robots deployed has hit the 100-unit mark.

“The robots are working round the clock in tough factory environments,” he says. “Over the next six months our plans include new product launches and market expansion into Europe.”

(From left) Yashas Karanam, and Rohan Ganapathy, co-founders of Bellatrix Aerospace Image: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India

Bellatrix Aerospace

At Bellatrix Aerospace, winners of the Forbes India Leadership Awards 2024 in the Emerging Innovator category, founders Rohan Ganapathy and Yashas Karanam are going beyond providing in-space propulsion systems. They’re tapping the opportunity to provide what they call satellites-as-a-service and space taxis.

In January, Bellatrix Aerospace achieved a significant milestone with the successful launch of its Arka and Rudra propulsion systems onboard ISRO’s PSLV C-58 launch vehicle. Bellatrix is the maker of India’s first privately developed Hall Effect Thruster, which it has named Arka.

The Bengaluru company has also developed India’s first high-performance green propulsion system, which it has named Rudra. Green propulsion systems can replace hydrazine, the highly toxic propellant currently used. The qualification of these propulsion systems puts Bellatrix on the global map of critical space tech providers.

The entrepreneurs are looking to raise more money as they move to set up a bigger, state-of-the-art factory in Bengaluru. They have developed four classes of engines which can cater to satellites ranging from 10 kg all the way up to 5,000 kg.

(From left) BlueJ Aero co-founders Utham Kumar Dharmapuri and Maruthi Amardeep Sri Vatsavaya Image: Vikas Chandra Pureti for Forbes India

BluJ Aero

At BluJ Aero, which is developing a large commercial drone as well as cargo aircraft, powered by hydrogen fuel cell engines, “we have completed manufacturing of our full-scale prototype for technology demonstration and internal flight testing is in progress,” co-founder and CEO Amardeep Sri Vatsavaya says.

From the point of view of commercialisation, the startup is in the process of signing memoranda of understanding for commercial pilot flights with customers starting in Q1 of 2025. Market entry for the aircraft, named BLUJ REACH, is targeted for Q1 of 2026. The plan for the next 12 months includes flight testing of BluJ’s hybrid hydrogen propulsion system, design and manufacture of the commercial version of REACH, Series-A fund raise, and initiation of the certification process with DGCA.

Co-founders of CynLr Nikhil Ramaswamy (in blue) and Gokul NA Image: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India

CynLr

CynLr, a vision and intelligence tech provider for industrial robotics, reports that it is now running commercial pilots for its “general-purpose visual robotics solution”, called CyRo, at General Motors and Denso.

“And a pipeline of automotive OEMs and Tier-1 vendors in the US, EU and Japan are evaluating the same for adoption,” co-founder and CEO Nikhil Ramaswamy says. The Bengaluru company has also set up a subsidiary in Switzerland and expects to open an R&D lab there by September, and another in Michigan, in the US by December.

CyRo is designed to take up only about the same space as a human worker. “It can be taught to perform any task on the shop floor that is currently performed by a human, with little to no changes to the processes,” Ramaswamy says. What makes this possible is CynLr’s proprietary vision and intelligence stack (CLX-01).

(From left) Rajarshi Pal, Jogin Desai and Rajani Battu of Eyestem Image: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India

Eyestem

Eyestem, which is developing a treatment for the dry version of a condition called age-related macular degeneration, was given the regulatory go-ahead for human trials in India in April this year.

The life sciences startup, incubated at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) in Bengaluru, has teamed up with the LV Prasad Eye Institute to test its proprietary product, named Eyecyte RPE, to see if it can help replace lost or damaged retinal pigment epithelium cells.

“We want to reach a much larger patient base than most cell and gene therapies worldwide,” Jogin Desai, founder and CEO of Eyestem, says. The aim is to use this cell therapy platform to develop products for large-scale availability, he says.

Arindrajit Chowdhury (right) and Tausif Shaikh, co-founders, Inspecity Space Laboratories Image: Mexy Xavier

InspeCity Space Laboratories

Professor Arindrajit Chowdhury at IIT-Bombay and his student Tausif Shaikh, a propulsion systems expert, started InspeCity in 2022. They dream of playing a role today in humanity’s colonisation of space in the future—envisioning entire independent cities floating in deep space.

The company’s robotics and sensing team has commissioned a micro-gravity test bed, and assembled and fired up a vision-assisted robotic arm “built from first principles for space,” Chowdhury says.

The company is also developing a 1N thruster for in-space applications (N stands for Newton, the unit to measure force). “The team is rapidly advancing up the technology-readiness levels,” he adds.

Various pieces of tech as well as the full robotic arm and propulsion system are under significantly more advanced stages of qualification than a year ago—some will also be tested on ISRO’s various platforms.

(From left) Shashwath T Ramkumar and Sharan Srinivas J, co-founders, Mindgrove Technologies

Mindgrove Technologies

At Mindgrove, which is developing systems-on-chip (SoC) semiconductor platforms for multiple applications, “we have completed the prototype tape-out of our first chip,” co-founder and CEO Shashwath T Ramkumar says.

“Testing is currently underway and to date, all the tests we have run have been successful, and the SoC is performing as per specifications.” More tests are in the offing—mainly power and environment-related.

 The company’s efforts caught global attention when it released its first SoC in May, called MG Secure IoT.

Now that the physical chip is available for potential customers to evaluate, conversations for commercial contracts have stepped up, Ramkumar says. Mindgrove expects to hit a major milestone around mid-2025 when MG Secure IoT will be generally available (meaning, more widely), after initial shipments to anchor customers.

In parallel, the team is also working on the design for the next chip, the first demonstrations of which are expected by end of this year.

(From left) Shahid Memon and Pramod Ghadge, co-founders, Unbox Robotics Image: Shailendra Pardeshi for Forbes India

Unbox Robotics

At Unbox Robotics, “we are rapidly expanding our global footprint,” says co-founder Pramod Ghadge. A recent customer in Europe is a large fashion retailer headquartered in Spain for whom Unbox “scaled up” their system. And they’ve “deployed a new system in the Netherlands,” Ghadge says.

“This quarter, we’re excited to go live in the UK, marking another milestone in our international growth,” he adds.

In India, Unbox has launched new customer sites in both the south and the northeast regions. Over the next 12 months, the entrepreneur duo is targeting five-fold revenue growth—albeit on the current modest base—with more customer sites expected to go live in India, the EU, Britain and the US.

Existing customers are also looking to add more robots to handle increased volumes through Unbox’s system, he says.

Aditya Bhatia, co-founder, Orangewood Labs Image: Madhu Kapparath

Orangewood Labs

At Orangewood Labs, which is developing a programmable robotic arm and a generative AI based software application, “we developed a coffee bot,” says co-founder Aditya Bhatia, which, as the name suggests, can pour you a cup of coffee from a vending machine, going through the various steps.

And they are integrating RoboGPT, a chat programme they’ve written to provide natural language commands to the robotic arm, with the coffee bot. Some 10 paying customers are using the robotic arm developed by Orangewood for applications such as pick-and-place, quality inspection, and spray painting, Bhatia says.

The Y Combinator-backed venture has its roots in the problems faced by the founders with furniture design and manufacturing, which led to their earliest prototype. Their plans include robotic solutions for sprayers and sanders for the furniture and related industries.

The entrepreneurs are also working to commercialise RoboGPT. This chat application can help reduce the skill gap between machines and humans resulting in faster deployments, Bhatia says.