Airbound, a Bengaluru-based autonomous delivery logistics company, closed an $8.65 million seed round led by Lachy Groom, co-founder of Physical Intelligence. The round included participation from Humba Ventures and continued backing from Lightspeed. Senior leaders from Tesla, SpaceX, and Anduril also joined the investment, signaling confidence from operators experienced in scaling complex hardware and autonomy systems.
The funding comes alongside a pilot partnership with Narayana Health, one of India's largest hospital networks. This collaboration will test Airbound's drone capabilities in medical logistics over three months, completing ten deliveries daily of blood samples, medical tests, and other critical supplies.
Drone delivery has long promised convenience but struggled with cost efficiency. Most systems rely on designs that sacrifice payload capacity for flight stability, making them expensive to operate at scale. Airbound's approach differs through its blended-wing-body aircraft with a vertical lift tail-sitter configuration.
The design allows vertical takeoff and landing while maintaining the aerodynamic efficiency of fixed-wing flight. This avoids the performance penalties common in tilt-rotor and quadplane designs. The result is a payload-to-aircraft mass ratio of 1kg-to-1.5kg, meaning the drone can carry nearly as much weight as the aircraft itself. That efficiency translates to delivery costs 20 times lower than conventional methods and significantly cheaper than competing drone systems.
"We are grateful to our incoming and current investors for supporting our vision to make the cost of delivery negligible," said Naman Pushp, Founder and CEO of Airbound. "The healthcare sector represents the perfect testing ground for our technology because it demands both reliability and efficiency. Our partnership with Narayana Health validates that our approach can handle the most critical delivery requirements while demonstrating the cost advantages that will make our service accessible globally."
Airbound will use the fresh capital to scale its proprietary carbon fiber manufacturing process, which already enables daily aircraft production. The company plans to expand operations beyond medical delivery after gathering insights from the Narayana Health pilot. Those learnings will inform service improvements, cost reductions, and preparations for broader market adoption in 2026.
The medical delivery pilot offers more than just operational experience. It provides regulatory advantages and customer validation in a high-stakes environment where reliability matters most. Success in healthcare could open doors to other logistics applications where speed and cost efficiency are priorities.
"Airbound's approach to drone delivery addresses fundamental physics and economics problems that have limited the scalability of existing solutions," said Lachy Groom, co-founder of Physical Intelligence. "Their blended-wing-body design and manufacturing capabilities position them to achieve the cost efficiency needed to make drone delivery truly viable for a wide range of applications."
The three-month pilot with Narayana Health will focus on real-world conditions that push the technology's limits. Medical logistics demands precise timing, careful handling, and near-perfect reliability. If Airbound can meet those standards while maintaining its promised cost structure, it could prove the viability of its model for less demanding applications.
"At Narayana Health, we are constantly exploring innovative solutions to enhance patient care and operational efficiency," said Dr Devi Shetty, Founder and Chairman, Narayana Health. "Our partnership with Airbound allows us to pilot a promising technology that could significantly improve the speed and reliability of medical deliveries. This initiative reflects our commitment to leveraging technology to better serve patients, particularly in areas where timely access to critical diagnostics and supplies can make a life-saving difference."
The partnership targets underserved regions where traditional logistics infrastructure is limited or nonexistent. In those areas, the difference between timely and delayed delivery can be measured in patient outcomes rather than just convenience.
Founded by Naman Pushp, Airbound completed a funding round in November 2024 and has now raised over $10 million in total capital. The company's mission centers on making delivery costs so negligible that geographic distance becomes irrelevant for accessing goods and services. That vision resonates particularly in markets where physical infrastructure hasn't kept pace with population growth or economic development.
The aircraft's blended-wing-body shape and carbon fiber construction give it an efficiency advantage measured not just in payload capacity but in operational economics. Lower costs per delivery mean the service can reach price points that make drone logistics viable for everyday items, not just high-value or emergency shipments.
The participation of senior leaders from Tesla, SpaceX, and Anduril adds a layer of validation beyond typical venture backing. These operators have built and scaled some of the most ambitious hardware and autonomy programs in recent years. Their involvement suggests confidence that Airbound has solved technical problems that have stymied other drone delivery attempts.
Lachy Groom's leadership of the round through his role at Physical Intelligence further emphasizes the intersection of robotics, autonomy, and physical systems. The investor lineup reflects belief not just in the market opportunity but in the team's ability to execute on manufacturing and operations at scale.
With daily production already underway and a high-profile pilot partnership secured, Airbound is positioning itself to prove that ultra-low-cost drone delivery isn't just theoretically possible—it's operationally achievable. The next three months will test whether that promise holds up under real-world conditions.
