Prosus Ventures led a $1.5 million pre-seed funding round in Indian space robotics startup Cosmochute. The company joins six startups from the inaugural Atoms X cohort, launched earlier this year in partnership with Accel.
Prosus Ventures said it focuses on frontier technologies with the potential to unlock the next era of industry disruption. Through Atoms X, it backs innovations that combine scientific breakthroughs and engineering ambition to deliver step-change progress in foundational areas. The startups in the programme span diverse sectors, including climate infrastructure, space communications, aerospace launch systems and next-generation healthcare.
“At Prosus Ventures, we actively explore frontier technologies spanning specialised engineering, deep technology and future-economy infrastructure, supporting founders as they build ambitious companies on their terms,” said Dhruv Gupta, investor at Prosus.
The investment in Cosmochute comes at a juncture when India’s private space ecosystem is entering a new phase, moving beyond launch and satellite capabilities towards the infrastructure needed to make in-space operations and lunar exploration commercially viable. Cosmochute’s founders are three UK-returned rocket engineers who have chosen to build in India, reflecting the growing depth of specialised talent in the sector. Cosmochute is guided by Mylswamy Annadurai, former programme director of Chandrayaan-1.
“Space 1.0 was ISRO proving India could reach orbit. Space 2.0 made orbit commercial: cheaper, more frequent, and open to private capital. With sustainable access now secured, we believe it’s the moment for Space 3.0 - what happens after you make the in-space economy operable and extend it to the surface of the Moon,” said Janhavi Gore, co-founder of Cosmochute. “We intend to utilise the funds to accelerate platform development, hiring and space research and innovation.”
The investment will support the development of LEAP, Cosmochute’s flagship modular lunar mobility platform designed to support payload transportation and deployment on the Moon. It addresses a fundamental challenge for the emerging lunar economy: the cost and complexity of delivering and deploying equipment on the Moon, where missions still require highly specialised engineering. Cosmochute aims to make lunar missions more standardised, scalable and commercially viable by creating a reusable infrastructure layer that multiple lunar missions can build on. The funding will accelerate LEAP’s development, strengthen the engineering team and advance the company’s commercial roadmap, with potential applications extending to broader in-space and terrestrial robotics over time.