Aerospace startup Sarla Aviation, which plans to introduce electric air taxis for local commuting by 2028, has announced the start of ground testing for its air taxi programme at its Bengaluru manufacturing facility.
With ground testing now underway, the company has entered its core validation phase. Consequently, the programme has moved beyond digital simulations and laboratory-scale experiments into full aircraft-scale testing.
The company further stated that this milestone places India among a select group of nations actively developing next-generation vertical flight systems at an industrial scale.
Meanwhile, Sarla Aviation disclosed that it has raised a total of $13 million (approximately ₹116 crore) across its pre-Seed and seed funding rounds in 2024. Subsequently, the company closed a Series A round in January 2025, led by Accel and Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.
Earlier this year, the startup unveiled its prototype air taxi, Shunya, at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo. At the same time, it reiterated its plans to deploy electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft in Bengaluru by 2028.
Commenting on the latest development, the company said, “Sarla Aviation has commenced ground testing for its half-scale (7.5-metre wingspan) eVTOL demonstrator, SYLLA SYL-X1, at the company’s Bengaluru test facility.”
With a wingspan of 7.5 metres, SYL-X1 stands as the largest and most advanced private eVTOL demonstrator currently under development in India, according to the company.
Notably, the company achieved this milestone in approximately nine months of development and at a fraction of the capital typically required for comparable global programmes. As a result, the achievement reflects a level of engineering scale, execution speed, and systems maturity not previously demonstrated by a private aerospace company in the country.
The current demonstrator functions as a sub-scale aircraft specifically built to validate structural behaviour, propulsion integration, and system-level safety architecture at a meaningful scale.
Unlike academic prototypes or small RC-scale platforms, SYL-X1 incorporates certification intent from the outset. Therefore, it serves as a direct bridge toward Sarla Aviation’s full-scale aircraft with a 15-metre wingspan.
Founded in October 2023 by Adrian Schmidt, Rakesh Gaonkar, and Shivam Chauhan, Sarla Aviation has secured backing from Accel and prominent angel investors. These include Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.
In addition, the company appointed former civil aviation secretary Rajiv Bansal as an advisor in August this year, further strengthening its regulatory and policy expertise.
Sharing the company’s vision, Gaonkar, co-founder and CTO, said, “Our focus has never been on being first, but on building to last and on creating an aviation giant. We are building a platform that can be certified, produced, and safely operated, designed and owned entirely in India. Our goal is to take this new era of aviation technology across the finish line for India and bring it home.”
Beyond aircraft design, the company highlighted that the challenge also involved building a certification-aligned flight-test ecosystem and navigating India’s still-evolving aerospace supply chain.
Looking ahead, Sarla Aviation stated that its technology roadmap targets helicopter-class mission endurance. At the same time, it aims to significantly reduce cost, operational complexity, and safety trade-offs through electric propulsion and integrated systems design.
