Airbound Scales New Class of Aircraft to Change the Economics of Flight

$37 million Series A led by Greenoaks to accelerate the commercial expansion of Airbound's next-generation aircraft

BENGALURU, India, Aug. 25, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Airbound, the aerospace company that designs and manufactures the world's most efficient aircraft, today announced a $37 million Series A round and a new commercial deployment agreement with the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Together, these milestones mark the next phase of adoption for Airbound's breakthrough aircraft.

A New Class of Aircraft
Transport aircraft are among the most important technologies ever built, but their core architecture has changed surprisingly little over time. Airbound combines advances in autonomy and materials science with a physics-first approach, creating a new class of transport aircraft designed to weigh less than the matter they move. This single shift changes what it costs to move anything, anywhere.

Airbound’s Series A financing will be used to accelerate engineering, commercial-scale manufacturing, and go-to-market initiatives. The round was led by Greenoaks with participation from new and existing investors including DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed and Humba Ventures. Since launching in 2023, Airbound has raised nearly $50 million.

“We believe in a world where all movement happens in the air. Not some of it. Not most of it. All of it. A world where flying is cheaper than taking the bus, where moving a single package costs less than moving 20 tons by truck, and where we look at cars the way we look at horses today,” said Naman Pushp, Founder and CEO of Airbound. “Better physics leads to better economics, which unlocks the potential to move people and goods for a fraction of a cent. That is what we’re building at Airbound.”

Carrying a single passenger, or roughly 100 kg of cargo, typically requires a purpose-built aircraft weighing around 400 kg once fuel and payload are counted, meaning most of that weight is spent lifting the aircraft itself, not the payload. Airbound is built to flip that equation, so that most of the weight in flight is the payload you’re actually trying to move.

“Moving goods has always forced a choice between fast and cheap,” said Neil Shah, Partner at Greenoaks. “Trucks are cheap and slow, planes are fast and expensive, and nothing has broken the trade-off in more than a century. Airbound does. When one autonomous aircraft can move a single package with the cost efficiency of a fully loaded 20-ton truck, fast delivery and cheap delivery are no longer in tension, and roads stop being the default. We are proud to partner with Airbound on this journey.”

Commercial Momentum
Designed, manufactured, and deployed in India, Airbound's aircraft are built and tested in one of the world's most demanding operating environments. The company has already completed more than 1,000 autonomous flights with zero mission failures in partnership with Narayana Health, one of India’s largest hospital networks, transporting diagnostic samples between healthcare facilities and reducing delivery times from hours to minutes.

Under its latest agreement with Andhra Pradesh, Airbound will build a drone delivery network to connect three cities and enable faster, lower-cost transport. The company will scale up to 10,000 daily flights, supporting retail, e-commerce, and healthcare deliveries across the region. The program will serve as the playbook for aerial deliveries nationwide.

“The bar for delivery in India is high. The benchmark is 10 minutes to your doorstep, at an extremely low cost. That’s the complexity here,” said Pushp. “If you can build something that works in India, it tends to work anywhere.”

“We're excited about the bold new approaches emerging in autonomous delivery, and we love backing teams tackling hard problems,” said Harrison Shih, Head of Product for DoorDash Labs. “What drew us to Airbound is their willingness to go back to first principles and take on the physics and cost constraints that are keeping aerial delivery from being ubiquitous. Their progress in India, one of the world's most demanding operating environments, shows what passionate engineering can do, and we're eager to see what they build.”

The same physics that moves a diagnostic sample between two hospitals will move freight and, in time, move people between cities, turning a 300-kilometer journey into a 20-minute flight. As the internet made distance irrelevant for information, Airbound intends to do the same for physical matter.

About Airbound
Airbound is an aerospace company based in Bengaluru, India, designing and manufacturing the world’s most efficient aircraft. Founded in 2023, the company combines advances in autonomy and materials science with a physics-first approach to create a new class of transport aircraft that weigh less than the matter they move, fundamentally changing the economics of flight. Airbound’s aircraft are built for logistics providers, e-commerce companies, retailers and anyone moving people or goods. Its purpose is to make the movement of matter nearly free, for everyone. For more information, visit www.airbound.com.

Contacts
Airbound: press@airbound.com

India Agency Contact:
prituh@avianwe.com | +91 9987003160
vidhiv@avianwe.com | +91 9830552507

US Agency Contact:
airbound@launchsquad.com