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Rising private vehicle ownership and declining use of public and non-motorized transportation have exacerbated traffic congestion in India, the world’s most populous country, which also suffers from relatively narrower roads and inadequate parking facilities in cities. New Delhi He recognizes These challenges, new ways to address them have been rapidly explored.
Air taxis would do just that, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an event in September Coming soon “Truth in India” Which indicates the government’s interest in supporting the new means of transportation. The country’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, is also involved Recently framed rules for Vertiports To pave the way for air taxis.
the iPlan Company Riding this wave.
The startup, founded by Satya Chakravarthy, a professor of aerospace engineering at IIT Madras in 2019, is building its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle, the e200x, after several months of developing drones for charging and camera applications. Chakravarthy has a strong pedigree: He is also a co-founder and advisor at Indian space technology startups, including Agnikul and GalaxEye, and at an Indian hyperloop-focused startup, TuTr Hyperloop.
Chakravarthy told TechCrunch that ePlane has earned IPs in developing urban and cargo-focused aircraft with a reasonably slow airspeed and a combined wingspan of 8 metres, as opposed to typical air taxis which have a wingspan of 12 to 16 metres. . This will enable it to land in tight spaces and make multiple short flights — up to 60 flights a day — on a single charge, he says. It claims that passengers will reduce travel time by up to 85%, at a cost of less than double the fare they would normally pay for an Uber ride.
Most eVTOL vehicles currently are multicopters similar to commercial drones, including air taxis carrying speakers and vertical rotors. Although this configuration is easy to develop and implement in the market, it does not cover longer distances on a single battery charge, Chakravarthy said. ePlane has chosen a lift-and-flight configuration where the vehicle carries a winged structure just like a typical aircraft but with vertical rotors similar to a drone.
“This configuration has proven to be very reliable because we have redundancies in terms of the vertical rotors bearing the weight of the aircraft, while the wings take their share of the weight counterweight gradually so that we do not lose lift during the transition from vertical take-off and hover to forward flight,” he said.
The startup has also developed a technology called synergistic lift, which uses vertical rotors even in forward flight to make the wings compact enough.
Chakravarthy told TechCrunch that ePlane manufactures aircraft components at the IIT Madras facility, including airframe parts, seat design and propellers. The startup outsources the cells but assembles the batteries for the plane at its facility to manage the plane’s center of gravity.
The startup aims to commercialize its electric air taxi in the middle to second half of 2026 after obtaining the required certifications from Indian and global authorities and prototype the aircraft in the first half of 2025, Chakravarthy told TechCrunch.
Prior to testing the vehicle, ePlane had raised a $14 million Series B funding round led by Speciale Invest and Singaporean Antares Ventures. The full equity round also included participation from Micelio Mobility, Naval Ravikant, Java Capital, Samarthya Investment Advisors, Redstart (from Naukri), and Anicut. The round valued the startup at US$46 million, more than double its previous valuation of US$21 million.
The new capital will help ePlane, which has a workforce of more than 100 people, achieve global regulatory certifications and strengthen its commercialization efforts.
India’s success could help ePlane enter other markets, including the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia and Europe.
“We work with the conviction that what is good for India will be good for the world,” Chakravarthy said.
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