Manastu Space has raised Rs 22 crore from Gandhi Securities and Investments, the Thacker Legacy Trusts and a clutch of angel investors. Regulatory filings show the money forms part of an ongoing extension of its Series A round.
The round is not yet closed. Filings indicate a further Rs 9.2 crore from Capital A has yet to be confirmed, so the final size can still change before closure.
The filings also record a Rs 2.5 crore share allotment to Aakash founder Aakash Chaudhry that was later cancelled. That detail matters because it separates money actually raised from money once proposed.
The stated use is practical rather than promotional. The company plans to put the capital toward research and development, growth, expansion, marketing and general corporate activities.
Why the timing matters
The equity raise lands days after a much larger public commitment. On 26 October, the Technology Development Board signed an agreement to provide Rs 116 crore to Manastu Space under the Research Development and Innovation Fund.
That support is structured as optionally convertible debt for a project with a total cost of Rs 277.63 crore. It is project finance for development and validation, not a grant and not part of the Rs 22 crore equity round.
The project aims to move a scalable green propulsion system from Technology Readiness Level 6 to Level 9. Its thrust range runs from 5 millinewtons to 300 newtons, covering small satellites through to launch vehicle applications.
Indigenous propulsion technologies are important for strengthening India’s capabilities across the space value chain.
Those are the words of Technology Development Board secretary Rajesh Kumar Pathak, and they explain why a government fund is backing a propulsion company at this stage. The bet is on domestic capability in a critical part of the space value chain, not on a single satellite.
A propellant built to replace hydrazine
At the centre is MS289, a hydrogen peroxide and alcohol based propellant with specialised additives. Manastu pairs it with an ultra-high-temperature ceramic catalyst that operates at 1400 degrees Celsius to decompose the peroxide and ignite the alcohol fuel.
The company says the approach gives 50 percent higher performance than conventional toxic propellants such as hydrazine. That is a company claim, and it is the claim on which its safety and handling argument rests.
Hydrazine has long been the standard for satellite propulsion, but its toxicity makes ground handling expensive and tightly controlled. A safer fuel does not only change chemistry, it changes how quickly a satellite team can prepare, test and ship hardware.
The product range reflects that ambition. Vyom 2U serves satellites up to 100 kilograms, while i-Booster covers satellites from 100 to 500 kilograms with orbit raising, station keeping, collision avoidance and deorbiting.
Sharanga targets CubeSats, and GP-LAM is a 300 newton thruster for upper stages of launch vehicles and orbital transfer vehicles. Together, the four systems let Manastu pitch across satellite sizes rather than betting on one mission class.
Flight heritage before the next cheque
Investors in this round are backing hardware that has already fired in space. On 31 December 2024, Vyom 2U was test-fired aboard ISRO’s PSLV-C60 Orbital Experimental Module, known as POEM-4.
A 30 second first firing tilted the 1408 kilogram platform by 24 degrees. Later firings took cumulative firing past 700 seconds, and the system reached Technology Readiness Level 8.
Separately, Manastu delivered i-Booster to the Defence Research and Development Organisation on 11 December 2024. That system followed four years of research funded by the organisation’s Technology Development Fund programme.
In October, Manastu also signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan’s Axelspace to assess integrating its green propulsion system into an Axelspace spacecraft. That step is an assessment for a possible in-orbit demonstration, not a confirmed flight.
Manastu was founded in 2017 by IIT Bombay alumni Tushar Jadhav and Ashtesh Kumar. It had previously raised about 9 million dollars, including a 3 million dollar Series A extension in August 2025 to commercialise its green propulsion and debris avoidance systems.
The support from TDB under the RDI Fund will help us advance our green propulsion technology through further development, integration and validation. Our objective is to develop a scalable propulsion platform that combines performance, reliability and cost efficiency while addressing the need for safer and more sustainable propellant systems. This partnership will support our efforts to take the technology towards TRL-9 and strengthen India’s indigenous space propulsion capabilities.
That statement came from the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer, and it sets the test for the next phase. The platform must now move from proven technology toward a system ready for wider deployment.
What to watch next
The first question is whether the proposed Capital A portion confirms and closes the round at a larger size. Until then, Rs 22 crore is the raised figure, not a final round total.
The second question is execution on the TDB project. Moving from Level 6 to Level 9 means proving the same system through integration, testing and validation, not simply building another prototype.
The third question is commercial. Flight heritage and defence delivery help, but satellite operators buy on reliability, lead time and price, and Manastu must now turn demonstration hardware into repeatable production.
