Unmanned aircraft startup Arctus Aerospace has raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding led by Version One Ventures, with participation from South Park Commons and gradCapital, alongside angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan, Srinivas Narayan, and the founding teams of Ather, Boom Supersonic and Bounce Infinity. An earlier $100,000 cheque from gradCapital and Emergent Ventures brings its total funding to $2.7 million.
Arctus is building unmanned aircraft for high-altitude imaging for business customers, and plans to convert deployments into annual subscriptions. Most of the capital so far has gone into R&D and manufacturing capex, along with pilots — and the next step is a production-spec aircraft. "We have been working with technology demonstrators till now, and the plan is to deploy this," the team says.
The startup has received inbound requests from the Middle East and Australia and is also targeting North America — planning to deploy aircraft there, meet customers and set up a base. Arctus is part of YourStory's Tech30 cohort — a showcase of India's most promising startups of 2026.
Why it matters for founders
Hardware pre-seed rounds are closing faster when the cap table reads like a credibility list — Arctus paired Version One with founders from Ather and Boom. For deeptech founders: raise from people who have shipped what you're building, and show capex discipline with clear pilot-to-production milestones.