Digantara Raises $50 Mn to Expand Space Surveillance

Digantara, a Bengaluru-based space tech startup, has raised $50 million in a Series B funding round to scale its space surveillance and intelligence operations, expand manufacturing, and grow research teams globally. 

The round saw participation from 360 ONE Asset, SBI Investment Co. Japan, Ronnie Screwvala, Peak XV Partners, and Kalaari Capital.

With the fresh capital, the company plans to expand beyond India and the United States, set up new manufacturing facilities for optical systems and satellites, and double its global research and development workforce over the next year. 

Digantara is also preparing to launch 15 space surveillance satellites and two dedicated missile-warning satellites through 2026–27.

“Space is no longer a frontier; it is the new high ground for national security,” said Anirudh Sharma, founder and CEO of Digantara, in a statement. He added that the funding would “accelerate our path to operational readiness, expand into the US and Europe, and drive new programmes in missile warning, tracking, and space-based interceptors.”

Founded in 2018 by Sharma, Rahul Rawat, and Tanveer Ahmed, Digantara began as a space situational awareness company and has since expanded into space-based surveillance and early warning systems. The company launched its first space surveillance satellite, SCOT (Space Camera for Object Tracking), in January this year, aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-12 mission, enabling space-to-space observation. 

Sharma said the company’s evolution was driven by gaps in persistent visibility and early warning. “What started as space domain awareness naturally evolved into building a constellation of satellites and ground systems designed to see earlier, track continuously, and enable decisions where seconds matter,” he said in a LinkedIn post.

It has since secured defence contracts in India and the United States.

Karnataka’s minister for IT and biotechnology, Priyank Kharge, said in a LinkedIn post that the state’s space tech policy aims to support companies such as Digantara as they scale globally. He emphasised support through “infrastructure, manufacturing depth and long-term policy certainty, so more world-class space companies can scale from Karnataka to the world.”

Digantara currently operates across India, Singapore, and the United States, and plans to expand into Europe by mid-2026. The company added that recent orders and mission contracts from defence and commercial intelligence customers reflect growing demand for space-based surveillance capabilities.

Digantara’s integrated infrastructure, AIRA, combines space and ground-based sensors with data processing systems. Its portfolio includes the SCOT electro-optical and LiDAR satellites, the ALBATROSS missile-warning satellites, and the SKYGATE network of ground sensors. 

Data from these systems feeds into its platforms, Space MAP and STARS, to support near real-time threat detection and response for government and defence agencies.