Once scoring just 51 marks in mathematics, Pawan Kumar Chandana is now the founder of India's largest private rocket factory and the man behind the country's first privately built rocket launched into space.
Early Life and Education
Born in 1991 in Hyderabad, Telangana, Chandana grew up in a middle-class family with a natural curiosity for machines, though his academic record initially showed little promise. As a school student, he once scored only 51 marks in mathematics, a subject that would later become the foundation of his dreams. However, his ambitious father never gave up on him and enrolled him in IIT JEE coaching. During this preparation, Chandana improved academically and developed a deep love for both math and science.
In 2007, he joined IIT Kharagpur after clearing the entrance exam on his first attempt, earning a dual BTech-MTech degree in Mechanical Engineering. While many classmates pursued high-paying jobs and international careers, Chandana was captivated by rockets and space.
From ISRO to Entrepreneurship
In 2012, Chandana joined ISRO as a scientist directly from campus. Despite a modest salary, he dreamed of retiring there because he loved his work at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. Over nearly six years, he contributed to the GSLV Mk-III (India's heaviest launch vehicle), the S-200 solid booster for GSLV Mk-II, and served as deputy project manager for ISRO's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV). In 2016, he won an internal innovation award at ISRO.
An idea sparked in his mind: building a space-tech company from India at a time when private rocket development was neither allowed nor funded. Five years later, in 2018, he quit ISRO—a move many considered risky. Despite having no business background or professional network, he began his journey by cold-messaging Mukesh Bansal, founder of Myntra, CureFit, and NuRX, on LinkedIn. To his surprise, Bansal, a fellow IIT Kharagpur alumnus, believed in his vision and invested $1.5 million.
Founding Skyroot Aerospace
In June 2018, Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, a fellow ISRO engineer and IIT Bombay alumnus, co-founded Skyroot Aerospace in Hyderabad. The COVID-19 pandemic made raising Series A funding a struggle, but just when his dream seemed impossible, the founders of renewable energy giant Greenko provided financial backing.
In July 2020, Skyroot became the first private Indian company to test a rocket engine, the Raman-1, a cryogenic engine named after Nobel laureate C.V. Raman. In 2021, when the Indian government opened the space sector to private companies, Skyroot became the first private player to sign an MoU with ISRO and later raised India's largest DeepTech cheque of $51 million.
India's First Private Rocket Launch
On November 18, 2022, Skyroot launched Vikram S, India's first privately developed suborbital rocket, from ISRO's Sriharikota launch range, reaching an altitude of 90 km as part of Mission Prarambh (meaning 'beginning' in Sanskrit). Soon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the company's new facility as its team grew to nearly 1,000 employees, establishing the country's largest private rocket manufacturing unit.
On May 7, 2026, Skyroot Aerospace made history again by raising $60 million in a funding round co-led by Sherpalo Ventures (firm of Ram Shriram, the first external investor in Google) and GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund. Today, the company is valued at around $1.1 billion and is preparing for its next milestone: Vikram-1, an orbital launch scheduled for 2026. If successful, Skyroot could join the top five private companies globally capable of regular orbital missions. As Chandana puts it, the USA has SpaceX, New Zealand has Rocket Lab, and India has Skyroot.
