Bengaluru-based space startup The Guild has raised $20.5 million in a Series A round led by TDK Ventures and BIG Capital, valuing the company at $80.5 million. The funding will accelerate engine testing, infrastructure buildout, and development of its fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle.
India’s private space sector is entering a capital-intensive phase where propulsion, infrastructure, and reusability are becoming defining battlegrounds.
The Guild, formerly known as EtherealX, has raised $20.5 million in a Series A round led by TDK Ventures and BIG Capital, with participation from Accel, Prosus, Yournest, Campus Fund, BlueHill, and Riceberg.
The round marks a 5.5x increase in valuation, taking the company to $80.5 million post-money. With this raise, The Guild’s total funding to date stands at $25.5 million.
A Strategic Bet on Reusable Medium-Lift Launch Vehicles
The Guild is developing what it describes as the world’s first fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, targeting payloads of nearly 25 tonnes to low Earth orbit. The segment sits between small launch vehicles and heavy-lift rockets, an area increasingly viewed as critical for satellite constellations, national missions, and commercial space infrastructure.
“Securing the backing of a strategic partner like TDK Ventures validates our vision to rearchitect today’s unipolar access to space into a truly multipolar frontier,” said Manu Nair, Co-Founder and CEO of Ethereal Exploration Guild. He added that TDK’s expertise in avionics, high-performance components, and hardware optimisation would help accelerate development timelines and reduce launch costs.
The company’s flagship vehicle, Razor Crest Mk-1, is designed to be fully reusable across both stages, a technical ambition that, if achieved, could significantly reset cost benchmarks in orbital launch.
Engine Testing and Infrastructure Become the Immediate Focus
With fresh capital in place, The Guild is preparing to enter an intensive testing phase. The company will soon begin tests of its 1.2 meganewton booster stage, powered by what it claims is the world’s most powerful reusable semi-cryogenic engine, known as The Stallion.
In parallel, testing will also begin on the upper stage and a Full-Flow Segregated Cooling Cycle (FSCC) propulsion system, a novel feed cycle intended to enable second-stage reusability — a capability still rare even among global launch providers.
To support this, The Guild is commissioning BASE-002 in Space City, Andhra Pradesh, a facility designed for integrated stage and engine firing, booster and upper-stage qualification, and advanced manufacturing. This will complement BASE-001 in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, which is already operational and focused on testing the company’s 80 kN Pegasus engines.
Building National-Scale Space Infrastructure
Beyond the company’s own roadmap, the facilities being developed are positioned as nationally strategic assets. BASE-001 fills a critical gap in India’s semi-cryogenic propulsion testing capability, with turbopump testing capacity exceeding 35,000 RPM, placing the country among a small group globally with comparable pressure regimes.
BASE-002 extends this capability further, supporting end-to-end manufacturing, cluster testing, stage refurbishment, avionics integration, flight software validation, and full-stage qualification. Large-scale additive manufacturing and cryo-rated turbopump testing up to 24,000 RPM are central to the facility’s design.
Together, the two sites strengthen India’s domestic space testing infrastructure while giving The Guild vertically integrated control over development, iteration, and qualification.
Investors Signal Confidence in India’s Space Moment
For TDK Ventures, the investment aligns with a broader thesis around deep tech infrastructure and hardware-led innovation.
“TDK Ventures is thrilled to back The Guild in its goal to reshape the medium-lift space-launch industry,” said Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures. He highlighted the company’s ambition to reduce launch costs to $500 per kilogram, leverage India’s ISRO-trained talent pool, and take advantage of a cost-efficient domestic supply chain.
The participation of late-stage and crossover investors such as Accel and Prosus also signals growing confidence in India’s private space ecosystem as it moves from experimentation toward scaled execution.
From EtherealX to The Guild, With Global Ambitions
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Bengaluru, Ethereal Exploration Guild rebranded as The Guild as it sharpened its focus on building globally competitive launch systems. The company has already developed two engines in under 3.5 years, which will power the two stages of its launch vehicle.
Razor Crest Mk-1 is designed to carry up to 24.8 tonnes to low Earth orbit and 10.8 tonnes to geosynchronous transfer orbit, placing it squarely in a category that could serve both domestic and international customers.
As India opens its space sector further to private participation, companies like The Guild are positioning themselves not just as launch providers, but as long-term infrastructure builders in a rapidly commercialising orbital economy.
