Deepinder Goyal, known as the founder of Zomato, is now entering the regional aviation sector with the launch of LAT Aerospace. His goal is to make regional travel cheaper and shorter.
He founded this company with the ex-Zomato COO Surobhi Das and invested $20 million personally, along with $50 million from a seed funding round.
The company plans to make small planes with 12-24 seats that can take off and land on small airstrips. Currently, India has more than 400 airstrips, but only 150 are used for commercial flights, meaning two-thirds oof resources are going waste.
LAT Aerospace aims to utilize these airstrips to connect all Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, because sometimes it takes many hours or even days to travel . They are considering creating a connectivity system similar to buses in the sky—affordable and quick. To do this, they are hiring aerospace engineers, systems designers, and specialists in this field to launch services within a range of 1500 kilometers.
This marks a significant shift from food delivery to aviation, but Deepinder appears ready to take the risk.
