Associate – Strategy and Operations

India's Airbound bags $37M to take on trucks with rocket-like drones. Airbound, an Indian startup constructing autonomous drones, has raised $37 million in contemporary capital because it pushes to make shifting items by means of the air as low cost as trucking them by highway. The Sequence A spherical, led by Greenoaks with participation from DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed, and Humba Ventures, comes lower than a 12 months after Airbound raised an $8.65 million seed spherical. With this funding, the three-year-old startup has raised practically $50 million. Airbound, and different startups on this nascent sector, argue that drones can transfer sure items quicker and cheaper than automobiles on the highway. And whereas there have been profitable deployments, drone supply remains to be removed from matching the size and flexibility of trucking. Airbound is attempting to shut that hole by redesigning the plane to make it extra aggressive with floor transportation. Typical plane spend numerous vitality carrying their very own weight moderately than the payload, making flight costly, notably for shifting smaller masses. Airbound's reply is to construct vertical-flight drones designed to weigh lower than the cargo they carry, founder and CEO Naman Pushp mentioned in an interview. Airbound's present drone, known as TRT, weighs about 3.3 kilos and might carry round 2.2 kilos of payload. Its subsequent model, at present beneath improvement, is anticipated to weigh about 6.6 kilos and have the ability to carry as much as 11 kilos, Pushp instructed TechCrunch. The startup makes use of a rocket-like, tail-sitter design for its drones, which takes off and lands vertically in an upright place earlier than transitioning to horizontal flight. Pushp mentioned Airbound intends to retain vertical takeoff and touchdown even because it develops bigger plane to keep away from dependence on runways. "We need to construct in the direction of a world the place every thing has price parity with trucking," he mentioned. Based in 2023, Airbound has accomplished greater than 13,000 autonomous flights throughout the southern Indian cities of Bengaluru and Guntur, Pushp mentioned. That features greater than 1,000 flights with the Indian hospital community Narayana Well being, the place its drones transport diagnostic samples between healthcare amenities. The startup makes use of a single lively drone on the Narayana route, flying diagnostic samples about 2.5 miles in round seven minutes. The identical samples can take three to 5 hours to be transported by truck when factoring within the time spent ready for sufficient samples to be bundled for highway transport, in response to Pushp. That partnership is increasing to incorporate Narayana's new Banashankari hospital in Bengaluru, which was designed with out an on-site diagnostic lab or blood financial institution and can as a substitute depend on Airbound's drones to attach with centralized amenities. Three-city drone community. Airbound has set its sights on a far bigger ambition to create a drone supply community that connects three cities within the state of Andhra Pradesh. The startup has signal an settlement with the state authorities with an eventual goal of 10,000 flights a day for retail, e-commerce, and healthcare deliveries. That day by day flight goal would require between 250 and 1,000 plane, relying on route lengths, although Pushp expects the quantity to be nearer to 250. The settlement doesn't contain a authorities contract or subsidy, Pushp mentioned, including that the Andhra Pradesh authorities is working with Airbound on the regulatory framework wanted to allow the community. The startup expects to generate enterprise from corporations utilizing it for deliveries. Indian startups together with Skye Air Mobility and TSAW Drones are already constructing aerial logistics companies, whereas different Indian drone makers similar to Garuda Aerospace have additionally explored supply use instances. Nonetheless, Pushp argues that Airbound desires to construct the plane that different logistics networks may ultimately use moderately than simply attempting to turn out to be the most important supply operator. "That's the Boeing position - the plane airways all over the place depend on, not the airline itself," he mentioned. Airbound designs and manufactures its plane in a 43,000-square-foot facility in Bengaluru, the place it retains work on the airframe and different core methods in-house. Whereas Pushp declined to reveal its manufacturing capability or what number of plane the startup has constructed thus far, he mentioned manufacturing wouldn't be the bottleneck as Airbound scales. The larger bottleneck, Pushp famous, is regulation, notably securing approvals for past visible line of sight (BVLOS) operations, a certification that permits drones to fly past the direct sight of an operator and is vital to working supply networks at scale. These regulatory constraints have additionally restricted Airbound's skill to show its flights into significant business income. Furthermore, the startup stays broadly pre-revenue regardless of having a crew of greater than 150 workers. "The aim is to be a large in a number of many years, to not make income as quickly as we will," Pushp mentioned. If you buy by means of hyperlinks in our articles, we could earn a small fee. This doesn't have an effect on our editorial independence.

Airbound, an Indian drone startup, has raised $37 million in a Series A round led by Greenoaks, with participation from DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed, and Humba Ventures. This brings the three-year-old company's total funding to nearly $50 million. The startup builds autonomous vertical-flight drones designed to weigh less than their cargo, making air transport competitive with road trucking. Its current drone weighs 3.3 pounds and carries 2.2 pounds of payload. Airbound has completed over 13,000 autonomous flights in southern India, including 1,000 with hospital network Narayana Health, transporting diagnostic samples. The startup has signed an agreement with Andhra Pradesh state government to create a three-city drone network targeting 10,000 daily flights. Despite its progress, the company remains pre-revenue, citing regulatory constraints around beyond visual line of sight operations as the main bottleneck to scaling.

Dennis Evashenk: procurement must build trust for growth. August 25, 2026 Dennis Evashenk, former Category Manager at DoorDash, says procurement teams must build stronger stakeholder relationships to improve efficiency Dennis Evashenk served as the Global Strategic Sourcing & Category Manager for Corporate Services & SaaS at DoorDash. His decades of knowledge across manufacturing, direct and indirect procurement, digital transformation and M&A have influenced his strategic approach to modern supply chain management. Dennis explored how procurement functions can boost organizational efficiency by 25% or more and elevate their strategic standing within an enterprise, emphasising the critical importance of acting as collaborative business enablers rather than operational bottlenecks. Procurement needs to become an enabler. Dennis believes that the key to unlocking true efficiency within procurement lies in how effectively the function collaborates with internal business partners. "I think one of the things that a lot of people don't always think about, well, driving that efficiency is you need to be liked by your stakeholders," Dennis explains to host Aaron McMillan on the Procurement Uncut podcast. Procurement needs to understand the overarching culture of the organisation it operates within. The function is often viewed differently depending on a company's maturity level, geographic footprint and existing governance structure. To bridge these gaps, he recommends hosting short information sessions to explain what procurement does, how its workflows operate, and where employees can seek direct support. These sessions consistently improve internal stakeholder perception scores and lower friction across cross-functional departments. Key strategies for building procurement trust & efficiency * Conduct Stakeholder Roadshows: Host recurring, bite-sized education sessions to clarify sourcing workflows and set clear expectations. * Map Organisational Culture: Adapt procurement policy enforcement based on regional culture, company maturity and localised operational needs. * Track Value Beyond Savings: Measure performance through stakeholder satisfaction metrics, contract turnaround velocity and risk mitigation rather than purely initial purchase price reduction. * Implement Tiered Intake Models: Streamline low-risk SaaS and direct material purchases using self-service intake forms to save up to 40% in processing time. * Establish Cross-Departmental Governance: Partner directly with marketing, legal and IT security teams early in the vendor discovery phase to pre-emptively catch compliance red flags. AI and technology integration. Artificial intelligence is another critical lever where Dennis sees immediate opportunity for procurement transformation. Rather than viewing AI tools primarily as a threat to workforce headcount, he believes the technology should supplement existing strategic roles, automate baseline spend analytics and drive organisational scale. "The goals really today should be to create efficiencies in procurement and be liked," Dennis states. He believes that technology needs to support a widespread shift in how procurement operates, with the function becoming something that the wider organisation wants to engage with rather than a team responsible for saying no. "I think one of the things that a lot of people don't always think about while driving that efficiency is you need to be liked by your stakeholders. The goals really today should be to create efficiencies in procurement and be liked. " Dennis EvashenkFormer Global Strategic Sourcing & Category Manager at DoorDash Flexible sourcing strategies and geopolitical risk. Dennis points to changing regulatory landscapes and ongoing geopolitical disruptions as areas where procurement must proactively prepare rather than passively react. When organisations operate globally, establishing local supplier partnerships offers invaluable expertise to help teams navigate complex compliance environments. Recent macro-level supply chain shocks demonstrated that traditional, single-sourced models carry unacceptably high risks. A resilient strategy requires diversifying shared service centers across multiple geographies and maintaining active Plan A, Plan B and Plan C scenarios to ensure business continuity. Influencing brand trust through ethical sourcing. Sourcing decisions directly impact consumer perception and brand equity, particularly regarding ethical sourcing, labour practices and raw material selection. Dennis recalls an early career experience involving palm kernel oil sourcing, where he was advised against partnering with a specific supplier due to environmental concerns. That experience reinforced how procurement choices carry long-term reputational consequences that extend far beyond initial cost metrics The full conversation with Dennis Evashenk is available on Procurement Magazine's Procurement Uncut podcast via Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube, where readers can also subscribe for future episodes. DoorDash's key partners. Deliveroo acts as a scale partner following its acquisition by DoorDash. By unifying their platform footprints across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, DoorDash consolidates global category management across 45 markets. This allows procurement teams to pool buying power across cloud infrastructure, marketing and courier logistics, standardising global vendor contracts and driving major supply chain efficiencies. Amazon Business serves as the primary B2B purchasing platform for indirect procurement and tail spend. By supplying corporate offices and localised DashMart fulfilment hubs, Amazon Business integrates automated spend limits and approval workflows directly into daily operations. This provides DoorDash with centralised visibility over everyday supplies, ensuring policy compliance while removing routine administrative burdens from strategic sourcing leads. Zip operates as the intake-to-procurement orchestration layer, functioning as the central interface for all employee spend requests. By automating cross-functional approval routing across legal, IT security, finance and procurement, Zip eliminates multi-departmental bottlenecks. This gives DoorDash real-time visibility into vendor intake, shortens contract turnaround times and creates a seamless internal purchasing experience. The Procurement Uncut podcast explores how procurement leaders are approaching cost, risk, technology and value creation. The full conversation with Dennis Evashenk is available on Procurement Magazine's Procurement Uncut podcast via Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube, where readers can also subscribe for future episodes. Executives. * Dennis Evashenk Global Strategic Sourcing & Category Manager (Corporate Services & SaaS). Company Portals