The ePlane Company raises $5 Mn in pre-Series A

The ePlane Company, an electric aircraft startup, has raised $5 million in its pre-Series A round led by Speciale Invest and Micelio. Naval Ravikant, 3one4 Capital, UTEC (University of Tokyo Edge Capital), Anicut Capital, Infoedge, Prashant Pitti (Co-founder of Easemytrip), Thought Ventures, Java Capital, and Firstcheque.vc have also participated. The startup had earlier raised $1 million in March last year.

According to the Chennai-based startup, the funds will be used for hiring, R&D, building prototypes and receiving certifications.

Founded in 2017 by aerospace engineering professor Satya Chakravarthy and his student Pranjal Mehta, and was launched in 2019. The ePlane company claims that its electric flying taxi enables 10X faster door-to-door commute at 1.5X the cost of a regular taxi.

The startup aims to build a compact flying taxi, called the e200 for passengers and cargo transport, which would lead to less congestion on roads, less pollution and fewer road accidents.

It claims to have test flown the lab-scale prototype of e200 and said that it is on course to do a full-scale prototype in April this year.