Mission Bellatrix ??????
AIM Events
Hosting the World’s Most Impactful AI Conferences & Events. For Brand collaborations write to [email protected]
For decades, India’s brightest space engineers trained at ISRO before moving abroad for better opportunities. But that’s changing fast as engineers are now choosing to stay back and build in India.
By Mohit Pandey
“People went abroad because of better projects and financial incentives, but if you are paid well here, you could visit those countries while still building in India,” said Yashas Karanam, co-founder and COO of Bellatrix Aerospace, in an exclusive chat with AIM.
The Indian private space sector is booming like never before, ever since the allocation of ?20 lakh crore as part of the COVID package. Just a decade ago, there were only a handful of space startups—now, there are over 190.?
One of the most exciting players in this space is Bellatrix Aerospace, founded in 2015 by Rohan M Ganapathy and Karanam. The company has raised $11.3 million from investors like Inflexor, StartupXseed, GrowX, and film actor Deepika Padukone.
“We have seen more people quit their ISRO jobs and start up on their own because they now know that the government is supporting this sector,” Karanam said.
India has long been among the top-five spacefaring nations, but until recently, ISRO was the only player. That left India with less than 2% of the global commercial space market. The government is now actively pushing private participation, allowing startups to secure contracts directly from ISRO and IN-SPACe.
The Challenge: ‘Make in India’ for Space Hardware?
Despite the momentum, building space hardware at scale is a massive challenge. Unlike software startups that can scale user growth quickly, space hardware takes time, patience, and some serious capital.
To solve this, companies are manufacturing their components in-house. Bellatrix, for example, has assembled a team of retired ISRO scientists to help develop materials from scratch. But funding remains an issue. Investors, used to fast SaaS and consumer-tech returns, are hesitant about deep-tech startups with long R&D cycles.
“There is a saying: ‘The space industry is a sinkhole for money.’ The more you deploy, the more it goes into capital and R&D,” Karanam said.
Why are Developers Quitting LangChain?
Though it wasn’t all that perfect, LangChain once held promise as the go-to framework for developers to build applications powered by LLMs. However, a growing number of developers are now moving away from it, citing issues from unnecessary complexity to unstable updates. Read more here.