Investor Lachy Groom funds Bengaluru startup to chase year-long airborne missions

Lachy Groom committed to a $2.5 million pre-seed financing round for Alteon, a Bengaluru startup founded by 20-year-old Samay Sanghvi, to develop autonomous aircraft capable of staying airborne for more than a year. The venture, backed also by Together Fund, seeks to use dynamic soaring— a technique albatrosses employ to draw energy from wind shear above the ocean— to power a small, fixed-wing drone with a roughly three-meter wingspan.

Initial trials over the Bay of Bengal demonstrated the aircraft completing seven O-shaped cycles at speeds above 62 mph while flying within a meter of the water’s surface. The next milestone is “energy-neutral dynamic soaring,” where the plane would fly continuously without propulsion by harvesting wind energy. Aerospace experts praised the low-altitude water-overflight as a promising first step but warned that turbulence, spray and variable wind shear pose significant challenges. Alteon, which also received early backing from Emergent Ventures and 1517, now employs about 20 people and is building several test aircraft each week.