Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal has given a peek into the first major prototype from his recently backed aviation venture, LAT Aerospace, marking an early milestone in the company’s push to build next-generation short-takeoff aircraft in India. The fully electric fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), described as a uSTOL technology demonstrator, is nearing its first test flight and has already completed ground-roll testing.
Goyal, who co-founded LAT Aerospace in January 2025 with former Zomato senior executive Surobhi Das, said the demonstrator is the company’s first proof-of-concept for a class of Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) aircraft engineered to operate from compact “air-stops” rather than full-scale airports. The model has been designed, prototyped and assembled internally at a flight lab built from scratch earlier this year. “This aircraft is designed to take off in 40 meters, thanks to a lift coefficient of 5 — more than twice what you typically see on most aircraft,” Goyal wrote in a post on X on Thursday. “It is a fully electric, fixed-wing UAV built from scratch and almost ready for flight.”
According to Goyal, the UAV has an endurance of around 60 minutes and is capable of autonomously covering the distance between Mumbai and Pune, suggesting potential applications in high-frequency short-haul logistics and autonomous mobility. The company did not disclose payload capacity or cruise speed, but the focus on takeoff performance and endurance indicates an effort to validate the aerodynamics and propulsion architecture before scaling to larger platforms.
Goyal said the demonstrator was developed in a few months, supported by a purpose-built flight lab. The facility houses internally designed benches, jigs, fixtures and test rigs, enabling LAT Aerospace to iterate rapidly on airframes and propulsion systems without depending on external suppliers. The company has already completed ground roll tests and expects to release footage of the maiden flight “in the coming weeks,” according to Goyal.
Beyond the electric demonstrator, LAT Aerospace has begun work on hybrid-electric propulsion systems, which could extend range and payload capacity for future manned STOL aircraft. Goyal said the company is also assembling a team to begin development of in-house gas turbine engines, signalling deep vertical integration unusual for a two-year-old aerospace startup.
“This is one of the hardest engineering challenges possible,” he said. “Our team is relentlessly at it to make this a reality before the turn of this decade.” A successful flight test would position LAT among a small cohort of companies globally attempting to commercialise electric and hybrid STOL platforms—an emerging segment expected to influence short-haul logistics, defence procurement and regional mobility networks over the next decade. ndigenous development of UAVs, hybrid propulsion systems and potentially gas turbine engines would represent a meaningful step toward reducing dependence on imported aerospace tech as well.
Goyal clarified that LAT Aerospace operates independently from Eternal — the parent company overseeing his consumer-tech portfolio, including Zomato and Blinkit. Eternal has no operational or financial link to LAT, which focuses solely on aerospace design, manufacturing, and prototyping. LAT Aerospace’s website says its first demonstrators are entering flight testing, with plans to scale through industrial partnerships and manufacturing arrangements. The long-term goal is to develop India-built regional STOL aircraft, potentially enabling a dense network of short-haul routes operating from compact airfields.
In less than a year since its founding, LAT Aerospace has managed to move from initial design work to preparing a fully electric fixed-wing aircraft for flight tests — an unusually fast development cycle in aerospace. The company’s early focus on STOL capability and electric propulsion aligns with global efforts to redesign regional aviation around smaller, more efficient aircraft capable of point-to-point operations. If the upcoming test flights are successful, LAT Aerospace will have completed one of the most rapid design-to-test cycles among India’s new aviation ventures.