Alteon raises $2.5 million to build aircraft aimed at months-long flight

BENGALURU: Bengaluru-based aerospace startup Alteon has raised $2.5 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Lachy Groom, an early Stripe executive and co-founder of robotics company Physical Intelligence. Together Fund, the operator-led venture firm co-founded by Girish Mathrubootham and Manav Garg, also participated.Alteon plans to use the capital to develop autonomous aircraft designed to remain airborne for months by extracting energy from winds over the ocean.Its immediate goal is to demonstrate “energy-neutral dynamic soaring.” This would require the aircraft to remain aloft without propulsion by gaining enough energy from changes in wind speed to sustain flight.Dynamic soaring is a technique used by albatrosses. It involves repeatedly moving between layers of air travelling at different speeds. This allows an aircraft to gain energy as it climbs, turns and dives. Alteon believes the technique could eventually overcome the fuel and battery limitations that restrict aircraft endurance.The startup said its aircraft completed multiple consecutive autonomous loops less than one metre above the open ocean during an offshore test in early August. The test showed that the aircraft could perform a demanding low-altitude manoeuvre in real offshore conditions, it said.It did not, however, demonstrate sustained flight using wind energy alone. That is the next technical hurdle Alteon is working to clear.“Building aircraft that fly for over a year using it is not a matter of a single technical breakthrough but a matter of solving a range of challenging engineering problems across autonomy, structures, aero and more,” founder Samay Sanghvi said. “As we go from measuring flight time in hours to months, the standard everything has to meet goes up with it.”Sanghvi began working on the project in 2023, shortly after leaving high school, and formally founded Alteon in 2025. The company said it now has a 20-member team in Bengaluru. It had previously received backing from Emergent Ventures and investor 1517.Alteon sees potential applications in weather and ocean mapping, tracking ships and fishing activity, monitoring critical infrastructure, defence and search-and-rescue operations. It has not announced customers or a timeline for commercial deployment.Get the latest Business News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.