Aerospace and defence space startup Sanlayan Technologies, on Monday (June 9), said it has raised Rs 186 crore ($21.7 million) in a Series A round, led by investors including Ashish Kacholia, Lashit Sanghvi, and Jungle Ventures.
The round also saw participation from Shastra VC and existing backers, including Gemba Capital and Singularity Ventures.
The round comes just over a year after Sanlayan raised Rs 36 crores in a round led by Singapore-based Jungle Ventures through First Cheque platform in March 2024.
Sanlayan claims to be developing AESA Radar for India’s unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) programme, with its in-house R&D capabilities. It has formed partnerships with five Indian startups and foreign OEMs for the joint development of cutting-edge solutions, it said in a statement.
The firm also acquired a majority stake in Dexcel Electronics, an ESDM firm, that claims to have contributed to programmes including Jaguar, Sukhoi, LCA Tejas and Chandrayaan-3.
With the newly raised funds, Sanlayan plans to increase its engineering headcount fivefold in the next six months.
The startup claims to be actively hiring domain experts, R&D scientists, retired armed forces veterans, and senior leadership from both public sector undertakings and private defence giants.
“India’s defence sector is at a once-in-a-generation inflection point. We will continue to acquire capabilities both organically and inorganically,” said Rohan Gala, Co-founder & CEO of Sanlayan.
Other defence startups in India include Garuda Aerospace, ideaForge, Zen Technologies and Newspace Research and Technologies.
Startups in the space that have raised funds this year include Vayudh’s $10 million funding round led by Dharana Capital, Optimized Electrotech’s $6 million funding round led by Blume Ventures and Mela Ventures and Tonbo Imaging’s $21 million Series D funding round from Florintree Advisors, Tenacity Ventures, and the Export-Import Bank of India.
