Bengaluru CEO wins $500 hackathon at 15, turns down US college offer, now runs $50 million startup | Today’s news
Meet Naman Pushp. The 21-year-old is building an airline company around a problem he first encountered while experimenting with drones as a teenager. Six years ago, Pushpa’s lock project raised $500 at a hackathon. Now based in Bengaluru, he is the founder and CEO of Airbound. His startup has already raised $37 million in a Series A round led by Greenoaks, taking the company’s total funding to nearly $50 million, India Today reported.
From Project Lockdown to Launch at 16: The Story Behind Airbound
In 2020, Pushpa was 15 years old when the COVID-10 pandemic closed schools and parks, trapping many children like him in his home. It was then that he focused on something that had always attracted him as a child – making robots. He soon began experimenting with drones. He called the project Open Drone and entered a hackathon and won $500. He invested the money back into the project and used it to build his first prototype. That first drone is said to be hanging on the wall of Airbound’s office.
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Who is Naman Pushp
Born in Mumbai, Pushp spent part of his childhood in Hyderabad and Malaysia before returning to India. He studied at Dhirubhai Ambani International School. His interest in building is said to have started in Malaysia where he made simple robots in class 5 and 6. He also entered robotics competitions and engineering projects.
At 16, Pushp, still a student at school, received his first venture check from GradCapital. As he was a minor, investors had to speak to his father before investing. He was later accepted to Carnegie Mellon University, which he chose not to attend to focus on issues surrounding drone construction.
Naman Pushp realized that conventional airplanes expend much of their energy carrying their own weight, so the cargo, the goods being transported, is secondary. This has made it difficult for drone delivery to compete cost-wise with road transport. That’s where his startup Airbound came in to reverse that equation.
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About Airbound
Airbound’s current TRT aircraft weighs about 1.5 kg and can carry around 1 kg of cargo. It takes off vertically and goes into horizontal flight. Pushp is said to be developing a model to carry a 5kg payload with further plans to expand production.
“We want to move towards a world where everything costs the same as trucking,” Pushp said in a post he shared on LinkedIn.
Airbound has reportedly completed more than 13,000 autonomous flights across Bengaluru and the Guntur region. These include more than 1,000 flights for Narayana Health. Its drones transport samples between the clinic and the hospital, making it faster and more efficient than traditional ground transportation.
Narayana Health’s new Banashankari Hospital in Bengaluru was designed without a diagnostic laboratory. The hospital is said to rely on Airbound drones to transfer medical samples between facilities.
Currently, the company can arrange up to 20 flights per day on one route from the clinic to the hospital.
In Andhra Pradesh, Airbound reportedly had plans to connect Amaravati, Vijayawada and Guntur with a long-term goal of 10,000 flights per day. Additionally, the state government is said to be assisting in establishing a network of ground observers to support private operators while keeping flights within visual line of sight.
what’s next
Manufacturing is expected to be another challenge. Airbound is betting on lightweight carbon fiber planes that can be mass-produced.
“100 planes a day will start to seem very small,” Pushp remained upbeat at the event, as reported by India Today.
