EtherealX raises $5 Mn in seed round led by YourNest

Spacetech startup EtherealX has raised $5 million in its seed round led by YourNest and saw participation from BIG Global Investments JSC, BlueHill Capital, Campus Fund, and Golden Sparrow Ventures, Karan Bhagat & Yatin Shah from IIFL Wealth, Kiran Shetty, and Akhilesh Agarwal.

The proceeds will be used to develop the engines for their fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle.

In February this year, the startup had raised its first institutional funding from Campus Fund, BlueHill Capital and Riceberg Ventures.

Founded in 2022 by Shubhayu Sardar, Manu Nair and Prashanth Sharma, EtherealX is attempting to build reusable rockets that bring both the stages of the rocket back into earth after flight. Currently, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the only major rocket maker that commercially operates orbital launches using reusable rockets, particularly in the medium-lift and heavy-lift category.

Among the startup’s plans is Razor Crest Mk-1, aimed to be the world’s first fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle. The model is designed to dispatch payloads of up to 24.8 tonnes to the Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) in expendable configuration, 22.8 tonnes in partially reusable configuration, and 8 tonnes in fully reusable configuration to 400 kilometres LEO.