GalaxEye Secures ₹63.84 Cr TDB Funding for OptoSAR Satellite

GalaxEye has secured ₹63.84 Cr in TDB funding for its OptoSAR satellite development. The Technology Development Board (TDB) signed an agreement with the spacetech startup on Thursday, September 24, providing the capital through optionally convertible debentures under its Research Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund. The project aims to advance GalaxEye's multisensor satellite technology from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 to TRL 9. The total approved project cost is ₹247.69 Cr.

Rajesh Kumar Pathak, Secretary of the TDB, commented on the strategic importance of the deal. "The agreement with GalaxEye reflects TDB’s focus on enabling indigenous capabilities in emerging space technologies and supporting their journey towards commercialisation," he said. The TDB operates under the Department of Science and Technology.

Technology and mission objectives

GalaxEye's project centers on its indigenous OptoSAR technology, which fuses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Electro-Optical (EO) imaging into a single satellite. Optical imaging provides high visual detail but is hampered by cloud cover and requires daylight. SAR imaging penetrates clouds and operates around the clock. By combining them, GalaxEye aims to deliver continuous, high-resolution Earth observation regardless of weather or time of day.

The specific mission is to develop a satellite capable of OptoSAR imaging at a resolution finer than 0.5 metres. Proposed applications for the technology include wide-area and long-range surveillance, along with the detection and classification of targets like people and vehicles.

Startup’s progress and strategic context

Founded in 2021 by Suyash Singh, Denil Chawda, Kishan Thakkar, Pranit Mehta, and Rakshit Bhatt, the IIT Madras-incubated, Bengaluru-based startup has been building toward this milestone. GalaxEye claims to be building the world's first multi-sensor Earth observation satellite. It has raised nearly $27 million to date, including a ₹44.2 Cr Series A round earlier this year from investors like Speciale Invest, Rainmatter, MV Core, and Mounttech Growth Fund.

The company's technical progress includes receiving a US patent for the core architecture of its OptoSAR technology earlier this month-a first for an Indian spacetech startup. In May, it launched its maiden OptoSAR satellite under 'Mission Drishti', touting it as India's largest privately built Earth observation satellite and the world's first imaging satellite using OptoSAR. Communication with that satellite was lost in July due to an anomaly linked to a geomagnetic solar storm.

Promoters stated the new TDB funding will accelerate the engineering, testing, and validation needed to reach TRL-9. The partnership aligns with government efforts to boost private-sector research in strategic technologies. GalaxEye is expanding its in-house capabilities for quality and reliability as it works toward deploying a constellation of indigenous micro-satellites with data fusion. GalaxEye is targeting the launch of two new OptoSAR satellites in the next two years.