Spacetech Startup Cosmoserve Nets $6 Mn, Eyes Commercialisation By 2028

Cosmoserve Space has raised $6 Mn in a seed funding round led by Japan-based Rebright Partners. While Aranya Holdings and Naandi Ventures also participated in the round, existing investors AUM Ventures and Shakti VC doubled down on their erstwhile bet. 

The startup shared plans to utilise the fresh capital to support tech demonstrations, fuel two upcoming missions, as well enhance the operations of its recently unveiled Hyderabad facility. 

Cosmoserve has now raised over $9 Mn since inception last year. The startup has doubled its valuation since it raised pre-seed funding in September, founder Chiranjeevi Phanindra told Inc42. The exact valuation is yet to be discerned. 

For context, the startup is building tech to remove defunct satellites and orbital debris from space and reduce the collision risks for operational spacecraft in a cost effective manner. 

It plans on optimising costs by setting up features within its craft that will allow it to refuel in-orbit and remove multiple pieces of debris in a single mission. 

The startup made its first tech demonstration, Mission Embrace-1, aboard Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket. The mission was designed to test the startup’s soft robotic capture system that removes space debris, but the system’s robotic petals failed to deploy as intended. 

Cosmoserve claims to have now identified and addressed potential issues with the thermal mechanism used to release the petals and the impact of low temperatures on the system, according to Phanindra. 

The startup is now gearing up for Embrace-2, an upgraded version of the mission to validate its upgraded robotic capture mechanism, which is expected to launch in the coming months. It is also planning a full-scale demonstration of its debris-removal capabilities, aiming to break a world record by approaching within 10 m of a dead satellite. 

Phanindra, who served close to 15 years with the ISRO before setting up Cosmoserve in June 2025, believes that the startup would be able to complete all tech demos by 2027 and start commercial operations by 2028.

“We have several letters of intent from satellite constellation operators – one from the US, one from Europe and two from India. They have to abide by the regulation for removing the dead satellite from space … so we are aiming to get one paid customer before actual commercial operations begin,” he added. 

Cosmoserve’s Base 1

Alongside the funding announcement, Cosmoserve inaugurated its new space debris removal facility in Hyderabad named Base 1 today, in an event attended by union minister of state Dr Jitendra Singh and Telangana IT Minister D Sridhar Babu. 

Phanindra says that Base 1 is India’s first private and the world’s sixth facility equipped with space vision effects and microgravity simulation.

In simpler terms, Base 1 can recreate conditions that spacecraft and equipment encounter in space, allowing companies to test how their tech will perform before an actual mission. This includes simulating how objects behave in microgravity (near-weightlessness) and how they appear or function under space-like visual conditions.

This costs around ₹6 Cr to construct, per Phanindra. 

Base 1 houses infrastructure for designing, building and testing satellite servicing and space debris recovery missions. This includes an orbital rendezvous and capture lab, an ISO Class 8 clean room for satellite integration, a mission control centre and a microgravity simulation platform.

The facility will also support the development of in-orbit satellite repair and refuelling technologies. 

Besides, the startup plans to use Base 1 to develop more critical technologies in-house in order to increase its share of local manufacturing from 60% and reduce dependence on imported components such as optics, avionics and space-grade electronics. 

“Primarily, the core technology we are building is a soft robotic capture system. We have a space robotics innovation lab where the R&D is happening. Then the next technology we are working on is a vision-based navigation system,” the founder told Inc42. 

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