At 21, Naman Pushp is the founder and chief executive of Airbound, a Bengaluru aerospace startup building lightweight autonomous aircraft that it hopes will make deliveries far cheaper.
The company announced a $37 million Series A round in August.
From School Robotics To A First Aircraft
Pushp completed an IB Diploma at Dhirubhai Ambani International School in Mumbai between 2018 and 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.
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It lists his time as construction team lead in the FIRST Robotics Competition, a win at the Asian regionals of the Space Settlement Design Competition and a 14th-place national ranking at the World Robotics Olympiad.
He started work on his first aircraft at 15, wanting to build something physical rather than another app, using scrap materials and a $500 micro-grant from GradCapital.
He turned down a Carnegie Mellon admission and spent a year on a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype.
One early backer told Inc42 that when he met Pushp, then 16, the teenager was showing computer models of the drone and writing equations for it, with no real aircraft yet.
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After school, Pushp raised a pre-seed round backed by Lightspeed. His profile lists him as Airbound's full-time founder and CEO since March 2023.
What Airbound Builds
Airbound is developing blended-wing-body autonomous aircraft meant to change the economics of drone delivery. Pushp told Inc42 that a conventional aircraft carries dead weight in its fuselage, which his design removes.
He sees healthcare logistics as the first use, aimed at getting around Bengaluru's congested roads.
The pitch rests on weight. He says conventional logistics moves around 150 kg of mass to deliver 1 kg of payload, against 2.5 kg for Airbound's aircraft. His LinkedIn summary states the company's goal as making 1 rupee deliveries a reality.
He remains a hands-on engineer, involved in design, manufacturing and controls.
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Funding And Investors
Airbound raised $8.65 million in seed funding in October 2025, led by Lachy Groom with Lightspeed and Humba Ventures taking part. Pushp told Outlook Business the Series
A money will go into research and development and into scaling production. He said the company intends to build far more of its current aircraft, the TRT, to show that drone delivery can work at scale.
Bigger Ambitions And A Wider Audience
Airbound says its aircraft are designed, built and tested in India, and plans eventually to apply the technology to freight and, over time, to passenger travel between cities. Pushp has described the aim as a world where flying is "cheaper than taking the bus".
His profile has also drawn attention outside the startup circuit. Journalist and filmmaker Ashlee Vance featured him on the Core Memory podcast this week, describing him as a 21-year-old trying to build an aerospace giant in India.
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