Pawan Kumar Chandana once scored 51 marks in a high school math exam—today, he leads Skyroot Aerospace, India’s first private company to launch a rocket, with a valuation of $1.1 billion. Born in 1991 in Hyderabad, Chandana grew up fascinated by machines, but his early academic struggles painted no clear path to the stars. Encouraged by his father, he enrolled in IIT-JEE coaching, turned his performance around, and cracked the entrance exam on his first attempt. In 2007, he joined IIT Kharagpur, earning a dual BTech-MTech in Mechanical Engineering—a foundation that would eventually propel him into India’s space revolution.

After graduation, Chandana joined ISRO in 2012, working at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. Over nearly six years, he contributed to the GSLV Mk-III, the S-200 solid booster, and served as deputy project manager for the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV). Yet, even as he advanced within India’s premier space agency, a bolder vision took shape: to build India’s first private rocket company. At a time when the ecosystem for space startups was nearly nonexistent, Chandana made the leap. In 2018, he left ISRO and co-founded Skyroot Aerospace in Hyderabad with Naga Bharath Daka, another former ISRO engineer.

The journey was far from smooth. Fundraising stalled during the pandemic, and early support came through a LinkedIn message to Mukesh Bansal, IIT Kharagpur alumnus and founder of Myntra and CureFit, who invested $1.5 million. Later, backing from Greenko’s founders helped the company survive critical phases. Still, Skyroot forged ahead—becoming the first Indian private firm to test a rocket engine, Raman-1, in July 2020. After India opened its space sector in 2021, Skyroot signed the first MoU between a private company and ISRO, then raised $51 million in one of the country’s largest DeepTech funding rounds.

On November 18, 2022, Skyroot made history with Mission Prarambh, launching Vikram S—the first privately developed suborbital rocket in India—from ISRO’s Sriharikota facility. It soared to 90 km, marking a new era in Indian spaceflight. Today, Skyroot operates India’s largest private rocket manufacturing facility, employs nearly 1,000 people, and is gearing up for its most ambitious mission yet: the orbital launch of Vikram-1 in 2026. With $60 million raised in May 2026 from investors including Ram Shriram’s Sherpalo Ventures and Singapore’s GIC, the company now stands valued at $1.1 billion.

Chandana’s journey—from a student once written off in math class to the helm of a space unicorn—proves that potential isn’t measured in marks, but in persistence. As India’s private space sector lifts off, Skyroot isn’t just riding the wave—it’s helping to create it.