Lachy Groom Backs Indian Startup Aiming to Keep Aircraft Aloft

Lachy Groom, a prominent solo investor, has backed a Bengaluru-based startup with an ambitious goal: keeping an aircraft in the sky for more than a year by harvesting energy from ocean winds. Alteon, founded by 20-year-old Samay Sanghvi, announced on Tuesday that it raised $2.5 million in a pre-seed round led by Groom, with participation from Together Fund. The funds will support development of autonomous aircraft inspired by dynamic soaring, a technique albatrosses use to extract energy from the wind. Sanghvi told TechCrunch that Groom decided to invest within the first 30 minutes of their initial meeting. Conventional aircraft must carry fuel or battery power for their entire flight. Alteon aims to overcome this limitation with small, fixed-wing autonomous aircraft that extract energy from wind shear above the ocean using dynamic soaring—a maneuver in which an aircraft repeatedly moves between air layers traveling at different speeds. "Once you build airplanes that can stay in the air for more than a year, there are millions of things you can do with them," Sanghvi said. The startup plans to initially focus on maritime surveillance, providing governments with real-time visibility into activity in their waters. The initial design is an aircraft with a roughly three-meter wingspan that flies close to the ocean's surface, climbs and turns through faster-moving air, and repeats the cycle to gain energy from the wind. Eventually, Alteon plans to use its propellers as turbines to convert some of that energy into electricity and recharge onboard batteries, Sanghvi explained. While the technology is promising, Alteon has yet to demonstrate sustained flight using energy harvested through dynamic soaring. However, the company recently completed a test of its autonomous flight system over the Bay of Bengal, where the aircraft autonomously completed seven O-shaped cycles at speeds exceeding 62 miles per hour, flying within one meter of the water's surface. This test marks early progress toward the startup's long-term vision. As of 2026, Alteon continues to refine its technology, aiming to prove the viability of dynamic soaring for year-long flights and unlock new possibilities in persistent aerial surveillance.

via TechCrunch