Can Airbound make drone deliveries actually work?

Aerospace startup Airbound has raised $37 million in a Series A round led by Greenoaks. 

The round also saw participation from existing and new investors, including DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed and Humba Ventures.

Founded in 2023, Airbound has completed more than 13,000 autonomous flights across Bengaluru and Guntur. 

That includes over 1,000 flights for hospital network Narayana Health, with its drones transporting diagnostic samples between healthcare facilities.

What are they trying to solve: conventional aircraft can be inefficient when carrying small payloads because a large portion of their weight comes from the aircraft itself. Airbound is designing lightweight aircraft that can carry more payload relative to their own weight, making small deliveries more efficient.

The latest round takes Airbound’s total funding since its launch to nearly $50 million, including an $8.65 million seed round raised in October.

Airbound designs and manufactures its aircraft at a 43,000-square-foot facility in Bengaluru, keeping development of the airframe and other core systems in-house.

The headwinds: regulation remains a major hurdle, particularly securing approvals for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations. 

These approvals allow drones to fly beyond the operator’s direct line of sight, which is essential for building large-scale delivery networks.

Those regulatory constraints have limited Airbound’s ability to scale its commercial operations. However, the company is already generating revenue from its flights.

Some numbers: India’s drone startup boom peaked in 2018, when 82 companies were founded. So far in 2026, 12 new drone startups have been founded.