While many teenagers dream of building the next social media app, Naman Pushp was obsessed with machines, drones and aerodynamics. Born in Malaysia and later moving to India, he studied at Dhirubhai Ambani International School in Mumbai. Instead of spending his free time gaming, he taught himself robotics, physics and aircraft design through online courses and hands-on experiments.
At just 15, Naman built his first drone prototype using scrap materials after receiving a $500 micro-grant from GradCapital. What started as a school-age experiment soon turned into a much bigger ambition: creating aircraft that could make deliveries faster, cheaper and independent of roads.
After school, he took an unusual decision. He chose not to attend college and instead focused full-time on building his company. That company became Airbound, founded in Bengaluru around 2020. Unlike ordinary delivery drones, Airbound developed a blended-wing-body VTOL aircraft, a design that combines the efficiency of an airplane with the ability to take off and land vertically. This makes the drones lighter, more energy-efficient and capable of flying longer distances.
The startup quickly attracted investor attention. Airbound went on to raise $8.65 million (about ₹72 crore) in seed funding from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with several global tech and aerospace backers.
By 2025, the company had grown to a team of around 50–70 engineers, increased production from two drones a month to one drone a day, flown over 10,000 km in testing, and launched a pilot project with Narayana Health to transport medical samples autonomously.
As of 2026, Airbound is still actively expanding. The company recently signed an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Drone Corporation to develop a scalable drone-delivery network in the Amaravati region, in the presence of the Union Civil Aviation Minister. Naman often describes himself as “a CTO playing the role of CEO”, because he remains deeply involved in engineering rather than just business.
What makes his story stand out is that Airbound was not created as a startup idea. It began with a teenager trying to build the best drone he could. The company came later; the obsession with engineering came first.
