Founder · Pixxel

Awais Ahmed

Co-founder & CEO of Pixxel, a spacetech company based in Bengaluru.

Co-founder · CEOBengaluruSpacetech
Founded
2019
Bengaluru, India
Raised to date
$220M
4 rounds on record
Latest round
Series C
$100M · September 2026

About

Awais Ahmed is Co-founder & CEO of Pixxel, a spacetech company based in Bengaluru, founded in 2019. Pixxel's most recent disclosed round was a funding round of $100M in September 2026.

Compiled from StartupFox records · updates as coverage is published

Company

Est. 2019
Pixxel
Spacetech · Bengaluru · Active

Pixxel builds and operates the world's highest-resolution commercial hyperspectral Earth observation constellation. Founded in February 2019 by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal while they were undergraduates at BITS Pilani, it runs as a US-India company: the parent, Pixxel Space Technologies, Inc., is incorporated in Delaware and based in El Segundo, California, while PixxelSpace India Private Limited in Bengaluru is the primary engineering and manufacturing entity and houses the Megapixxel satellite facility. Its six Firefly satellites image at 5-metre resolution across more than 150 spectr

Funding
September 2026Series C$100MTemasek (co-lead), Seraphim Space (co-lead), 360 ONE Asset, IMM Investment, Radical Ventures, growX Ventures
December 2024Series B$60MGoogle (lead), Radical Ventures, Lightspeed, Blume Ventures, growX Ventures, Glade Brook Partners, Seraphim Space
December 2024Series B extension$24MM&G Catalyst, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Google, Radical Ventures, Lightspeed
June 2023Series B$36MGoogle (lead), Radical Ventures, Lightspeed, Blume Ventures, growX Ventures, Sparta, Athera Venture Partners
Company profile →4 rounds on record

Journey with Pixxel

4 milestones
  1. Feb 2019Founded

    Founded by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal while undergraduates at BITS Pilani, initially funded with money borrowed from Ahmed's father, with the two living on around ₹10,000 a month while building hyperspectral prototypes.

  2. Sep 2024Milestone

    Selected for NASA's $476 million Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition programme through November 2028, becoming the youngest company in a group of established global Earth observation providers.

  3. 2025Milestone

    Launches all six Firefly satellites, completing the first phase of its commercial constellation at 5-metre resolution across more than 150 spectral bands.

  4. May 2026Milestone

    Signs a five-year agreement with the US National Reconnaissance Office to integrate hyperspectral data into the agency's remote sensing architecture.

Also building Pixxel

KKKshitij KhandelwalCo-founder · CTO→

Coverage

1 story
Funding · 7 Sept 2026 · 5 min read
Pixxel Raises $100M, the Largest Spacetech Round India Has Seen