Skyroot Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. is offering its founders stock options on the lines of SpaceX’s “moonshot” executive pay package to founder Elon Musk, provided they scale India’s most well-funded spacetech startup to certain lofty goals.
The founder-only employee stock option plan will give Pawan Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka up to a 4% equity stake, provided their company generates revenue by launching a satellite and raises $100 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion by December 2028. The Hyderabad-based startup will issue these shares to CEO Chandana and COO Daka in three tranches. Chandana stands to get twice as many shares as Daka.
The first two tranches are contingent on the startup successfully placing a satellite in orbit, followed by a second rocket carrying an at least 200 kg payload, according to an executive privy to the development. The final tranche is linked to raising $100 million at a $1 billion valuation.
On 7 May, Skyroot Aerospace announced that it has . The round was co-led by early Google investor Ram Shriram’s venture capital firm, Sherpalo Ventures, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC.
Privately held Skyroot, which counts steel magnate Lakshmi Niwas Mittal as an investor, first launched its suborbital rocket, Vikram-S, in November 2022. However, its plan to put a satellite into orbit has been delayed, with an initial launch planned first for 2024 and subsequently, by March this year.
Chandana told Mint last week that its Vikram-1 orbital launch is expected in the “coming weeks”. He said that the company expects to start generating commercial revenue after the first three ‘trial’ launches, with a December 2027 timeline.
Skyroot’s Vikram-1 rocket is designed for orbital flight and can deploy satellites weighing up to 350 kg in low earth orbits below 500 km in altitude. The suborbital Vikram-S only reached an altitude of 88.8 km.
The company names its small-lift launch vehicles Vikram to honour astrophysicist Vikram Sarabhai, the first chairperson of the Chandana and Daka worked at Isro before founding Skyroot in 2018.
Retaining key leaders
The founder-only Esop plans are common in private firms preparing for public offerings to retain key leaders, as seen at Paytm, Zomato and Nykaa. However, Skyroot, which has yet to generate revenue, is not clear about pursuing a public listing. Chandana indicated last November that it is too early to consider an initial public offering.
Chaitanya Giri, fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF), said the rollout of Esops linked with the success of Skyroot’s rockets is because of the complexities of space technology.
“A rocket is not like any other business, where success can be simply measured by revenue growth. Instead, a rocket is a system of multiple systems, and proving each sub-system to be successful would be key for Skyroot to win the confidence of both global clients and investors,” said Giri.
The other key factor, Giri said, is that the two founders, because of the progress they made and the pedigree they bring to the table, would be foundational for the success of Skyroot.
“Investors would want the two founders to be at the company in the long run because Skyroot’s long-term success will be defined by how well Chandana and Daka do. Such a plan, in fact, sounds fair, given how space is as an industry,” Giri said.
Skyroot’s five-member board includes the two co-founders, two investor representatives–GIC’s Mayank Rawat and Greenko Group’s Anil Kumar Chalamalasetty, and entrepreneur Mukeh Bansal.
A text message sent to Bansal went unanswered. Chandana did not respond to text messages or emails. A company spokesperson declined to comment, saying “the company is not talking about these factors right now—currently, the sole focus of the two founders is on the upcoming launch mission”.
Musk, Bezos
Industry observers said Skyroot’s plan to link Esops to rocket launches is “not surprising”. Globally, tech titans Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have tied employee shares to the progress that SpaceX and Blue Origin make with their launches.
According to a Reuters report on 29 April, SpaceX awarded Musk 260.4 million shares, with targets including reaching a $7.5 trillion valuation and establishing 100 terawatts of in-orbit data centres or satellite-based compute facilities, such as servers and AI processing hardware.
Additionally, Musk will receive these shares if establishes a city on Mars with 1 million residents. The board has not assigned Musk any timeline for any of the three far-flung targets. On 1 April, SpaceX confidentially filed with the US regulator for a public listing at a $1.75 trillion valuation.
On 6 May, Blue Origin, founded by Bezos, introduced a new, revised Esop plan for its employees, as reported by the Financial Times. Details about specific perks for Bezos were not provided. He owns 100% of Blue Origin.
For now, Chandana owns 17.42% and Daka owns 8.55%, giving the founders a total of a 25.97% stake in Skyroot. GIC is the largest public investor with a 31.08% stake, followed by Chalamalasetty of with a 16.59% stake, according to a Mint analysis of the company’s shareholding pattern at the end of March 2025.
Temasek, a Singaporean state-owned investment firm, has a 6.42% stake. Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Bansal and Solar Industries Ltd own 1.83%, 6.42%, and 5.07%, respectively. A group of small investors owns the remaining 6.63%.