365telugu.com online news,India,June 1,2022:Bellatrix Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. is raising a Series A round led by BASF Venture Capital GmbH, the corporate venture company of BASF SE, and Inflexor Ventures, an early stage deept ech/IP focused VC Fund. The round also includes participation from Startu pXseed, Pavestone Capital, Mankind Pharma family office, Survam Partne rs,Karsemven Fund, and other prominent family offices and angel investo rs.In the past ten years, the number of satellites in space has increased almost tenfold1 and based on announced private-sector missions is likely to multiply rapidly in the next ten years2.
In-space propulsion systems that save costs and use more environmentally
friendly technologies are increasingly relevant to the growing satellite market. Orbital Transfer Vehicles are becoming the new means of reaching orbit on rideshare missions for micro and small satellites.
Founded by Rohan Ganapathy and Yashas Karanam in 2015, the Bengaluru-based company has pioneered several firsts in the industry, including the world’s first commercial Microwave Plasma Thruster, India’s first privately built Hall Effect Thruster system, and India’s first High-Performance Green Propulsion system. The company is committed to ESG compliance and sustainability with its impetus on greener technologies.
The Microwave Plasma Thruster uses water as a propellant and the Green Monopropellant Thruster uses a proprietary high-performance fuel and catalyst, that is not only more eco-friendly but also easier to handle than conventionally used fuels for satellite propulsion systems. The company aims to utilize the funds for the development and testing of its 4 thruster modules and go to market by the end of the year with its technology. The funds are also used towards the company’s evolution into a full-fledged space transportation technology company with its unique Orbital Transfer Vehicle with capabilities to deploy customer satellites to their orbits quickly
as well as perform missions to the geostationary orbit (GEO) and beyond.
Bellatrix has bagged contracts from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and other undisclosed customers. The space qualification testing is expected to be completed in the coming months.Rohan M Ganapathy, CEO & CTO, Bellatrix Aerospace, said, “We are elated to onboard new investors on our journey to become a key player in the global space-technology industry. Pre-Series-A funding helped us successfully complete the development of numerous critical technologies in-house. With this investment, we will
be expanding our product portfolio, adding to our existing talent pool to broaden our expertise, augment our state-of-the-art infrastructure and focus on validation of our products in space.”
“Inflexor has always taken a keen interest in technological advancements affecting the space sector, and this is evident from our investment in Bellatrix from our first fund,right from their seed round. We see the space industry is growing exponentially, and Bellatrix’s products will play a major part in democratizing access to the space industry with their cost-effective and power-efficient thruster systems, ideal for small satellite manufact urers,” said Venkat Vallabhaneni, Managing Partner, Inflexor Ventures.
“The technologies being developed for use in space have the potential to offer many opportunities for the chemical industry,
for example in new materials and for innovative application cases of chemistry on earth and in orbit. In India in particular, this industry
is currently experiencing an unprecedented upturn,” explains Markus Solibieda, Managing Director of BASF Venture Capital GmbH. “It is BVC’s task to invest in young companies with disruptive technologies. We are pleased to be able to support Bellatrix, an up-and-coming company withpromising technologies for the space industry, and look forward to exploring opportunities for collaboration”, adds Markus.