Alteon, a deep-tech aerospace company based in Bengaluru, has announced it secured $2.5 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Lachy Groom, with participation from Together Fund, to further develop its autonomous aircraft designed for extended periods of airborne operation.
The funding follows a recent flight test in which Alteon’s aircraft demonstrated its capability to autonomously fly within one meter of the ocean’s surface. This test addressed a critical technical aspect of the dynamic soaring maneuver central to Alteon’s high-endurance flight strategy.
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Alteon Advancing Autonomous Endurance Flight
Alteon is developing autonomous dynamic soaring vehicles that aim to extract energy from wind gradients, mirroring the flight patterns of albatrosses, to remain airborne for months without conventional refueling or landing. The company’s technology seeks to overcome the traditional limitation of aircraft requiring frequent landings for maintenance and energy.
During an offshore flight test conducted in early August, Alteon’s prototype aircraft successfully performed multiple consecutive loops less than a meter above the open ocean. This achievement represents a significant step towards sustained dynamic soaring, validating the aircraft’s ability to execute complex maneuvers in real-world conditions.
Samay Sanghvi, Founder of Alteon, emphasized the iterative development process. “Building aircraft that fly for over a year using dynamic soaring is not a matter of a single technical breakthrough but requires solving a range of challenging engineering problems across autonomy, structures, aero, and more,” Sanghvi stated. He added that the company’s approach involves continuous learning from each build and flight to achieve ultra-high efficiency, precision, and reliability.
### Company Background and Future Trajectory
Samay Sanghvi, a self-taught engineer, began working on the concept that would become Alteon in 2023, directly after high school. He formally established Alteon (http://alteonenergy.co/) in 2025, with early support from Emergent Ventures and 1517. The company currently employs a team of 20 based in Bengaluru.
The next phase of Alteon’s testing will concentrate on harvesting wind energy to enable sustained flight without relying on propulsion, aiming to replicate the albatross’s ability to remain aloft for extended durations.
Lachy Groom, the lead investor, highlighted the transformative potential of Alteon’s technology. “If they get this right, we could soon have millions of them — essentially parked in the sky — doing things that today require large ships, crews, and huge amounts of infrastructure,” Groom commented, pointing to applications in ocean observation, weather forecasting, scientific research, and defense.
Shubham Gupta, Co-founder of Together Fund, underscored the unmet need for persistent ocean monitoring. “The ocean is the biggest unwatched surface on the planet, and the bottleneck has always been endurance: every aircraft ever built has had to land. Alteon removes that assumption entirely,” Gupta said.
The recently secured funding is expected to support Alteon’s transition from its current offshore test achievements towards achieving autonomous dynamic soaring without propulsion. It will also facilitate scaling research and development efforts aimed at deploying a fleet of these long-endurance aircraft over the ocean.
Applications and Industry Impact
Alteon envisions its fleet of persistent flight aircraft creating a continuous, real-time layer of capabilities over the ocean. This could offer a cost-effective alternative to traditional ships, satellites, or large offshore installations.
Potential applications for these high-endurance aircraft include comprehensive monitoring of weather and ocean conditions, tracking maritime activity such as illegal fishing and drug trafficking, monitoring critical infrastructure, and coordinating autonomous systems for defense, search and rescue, science, and various industries.
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