Lachy Groom backs Indian startup aiming to keep aircraft aloft for a year
Lachy Groom backs Indian startup aiming to keep aircraft aloft for a year
Lachy Groom 投资印度初创公司，旨在让飞机在空中飞行一年
Prominent solo investor Lachy Groom has backed a Bengaluru startup attempting an ambitious feat: 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 Tuesday that it raised $2.5 million in a pre-seed round led by Groom, with participation from Together Fund, to develop autonomous aircraft inspired by dynamic soaring, a technique albatrosses use to extract energy from the wind. 知名独立投资人 Lachy Groom 近日投资了一家位于班加罗尔的初创公司，该公司正试图完成一项雄心勃勃的壮举：通过收集海风能量，让飞机在空中持续飞行超过一年。Alteon 由 20 岁的 Samay Sanghvi 创立，周二宣布在由 Groom 领投、Together Fund 跟投的种子轮前融资中筹集了 250 万美元。该公司旨在开发受“动力翱翔”（dynamic soaring）启发的自主飞行器，这是一种信天翁用来从风中获取能量的飞行技巧。
Groom decided he wanted to invest within the first 30 minutes of their first meeting, Sanghvi told TechCrunch. Conventional aircraft need to carry the fuel or battery power required for a flight. Alteon is trying to break that limitation by designing its small, fixed-wing autonomous aircraft that can extract energy from wind shear above the ocean through dynamic soaring — a maneuver in which an aircraft repeatedly moves between layers of air traveling at different speeds. Sanghvi 在接受 TechCrunch 采访时表示，Groom 在他们第一次会面后的 30 分钟内就决定进行投资。传统飞机需要携带飞行所需的燃料或电池动力。Alteon 正试图打破这一限制，通过设计小型固定翼自主飞行器，利用“动力翱翔”从海洋上空的风切变中提取能量——这是一种让飞机在不同速度的空气层之间反复穿梭的机动动作。
“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 told TechCrunch. Alteon plans to initially use the aircraft for maritime surveillance, giving governments real-time visibility into activity in their waters. The initial plan is to build an aircraft with around a three-meter-wingspan that will fly close to the ocean’s surface, climb, and turn through faster-moving air, and repeat the cycle to gain energy from the wind. “一旦你制造出能在空中停留一年以上的飞机，你就可以用它们做无数的事情，”Sanghvi 对 TechCrunch 说道。Alteon 计划最初将这些飞机用于海上监视，为政府提供其海域活动的实时可见性。初步计划是制造翼展约三米的飞机，使其在靠近海面的地方飞行，爬升并穿过移动速度较快的空气层，通过重复这一循环来从风中获取能量。
Eventually, Alteon plans to use its propellers as turbines to convert some of that energy into electricity and recharge its onboard batteries, Sanghvi said. Sanghvi 表示，最终，Alteon 计划利用螺旋桨作为涡轮机，将部分能量转化为电能，为机载电池充电。
However, the startup has not yet demonstrated that its aircraft can actually sustain flight using energy harvested through dynamic soaring. It did complete a recent test of its autonomous flight system over the Bay of Bengal in which the aircraft autonomously completed seven O-shaped cycles at more than 62 miles per hour, flying within one meter of the water’s surface. 然而，这家初创公司尚未证明其飞机能够真正利用通过动力翱翔收集的能量维持飞行。不过，它最近在孟加拉湾完成了自主飞行系统的测试，飞机以超过每小时 62 英里的速度在距离水面一米以内的高度自主完成了七个“O”型循环。
Alteon’s next major milestone will be what Sanghvi calls “energy-neutral dynamic soaring.” This would allow the aircraft to fly continuously with its propulsion switched off, extracting enough energy from the wind to remain aloft. Alteon 的下一个重要里程碑是 Sanghvi 所称的“能量中性动力翱翔”。这将使飞机能够在关闭推进器的情况下持续飞行，从风中提取足够的能量以保持在空中。
Dr. Gabriel Bousquet, a Silicon Valley-based aerospace and robotics engineer who researched dynamic soaring during his PhD at MIT, called Alteon’s low-altitude flight over water a “promising first result.” But he noted that the harder challenge will be proving that the aircraft can reliably extract enough energy from real-world winds to sustain flight for extended periods. Flying low enough to harvest that energy safely is particularly difficult, Bousquet told TechCrunch, as the aircraft would have to contend with turbulence, waves, spray, rain, and changing light conditions while continuously sensing and reacting to a moving ocean surface. 硅谷航空航天与机器人工程师 Gabriel Bousquet 博士曾在麻省理工学院攻读博士期间研究过动力翱翔，他称 Alteon 在水面上的低空飞行是一个“有希望的初步成果”。但他指出，更艰巨的挑战在于证明飞机能够可靠地从现实世界的风中提取足够的能量以维持长时间飞行。Bousquet 对 TechCrunch 表示，在足够低的高度安全地收集能量尤其困难，因为飞机必须在持续感知并应对移动海面的同时，还要应对湍流、海浪、水雾、降雨和不断变化的光照条件。
Dr. Bharath Swaminathan, who earned his PhD from IIT Madras studying the stability of dynamic soaring, said the underlying physics is well established and called Alteon’s effort commendable. Keeping an aircraft airborne for several days using dynamic soaring would itself be “a very big step, and a big achievement,” he told TechCrunch. Swaminathan, however, added that while large-scale wind conditions may be predictable, local wind shear and turbulence can vary substantially, complicating an aircraft’s ability to continuously extract energy from the wind. Some of those challenges, he suggested, may only emerge through real-world flight testing. 在印度理工学院马德拉斯分校攻读博士期间研究动力翱翔稳定性的 Bharath Swaminathan 博士表示，其基础物理原理已非常成熟，并称赞 Alteon 的努力值得嘉奖。他告诉 TechCrunch，仅利用动力翱翔让飞机在空中停留几天本身就是“非常大的一步，也是一项重大成就”。然而，Swaminathan 补充说，虽然大规模的风力条件可能是可预测的，但局部的风切变和湍流可能会有很大差异，这增加了飞机持续从风中提取能量的难度。他建议，其中一些挑战可能只有通过现实世界的飞行测试才会显现出来。
Groom acknowledged the technical risk behind the bet. “Ambitious problems are always going to come with risks,” he told TechCrunch. “For me, it came down to believing Samay and the Alteon team are the ones to figure them out.” Groom 承认了这一赌注背后的技术风险。“雄心勃勃的问题总是伴随着风险，”他告诉 TechCrunch。“对我来说，归根结底是我相信 Samay 和 Alteon 团队有能力解决这些问题。”
Sanghvi began working on what would become Alteon straight out of high school in 2023, learning to build aircraft by making — and crashing — radio-controlled models before developing early prototypes. He formally founded Alteon in 2025 and received early backing from Emergent Ventures and 1517. Alteon now has a team of 20 in Bengaluru and operates from a 10,000-square-foot facility. The startup is building four to five aircraft a week for testing and has conducted more than 200 test flights in the past 30 days, Sanghvi said. Sanghvi 在 2023 年高中毕业后就开始着手研发 Alteon 的前身，通过制作并坠毁遥控模型来学习制造飞机，随后开发了早期原型机。他于 2025 年正式创立了 Alteon，并获得了 Emergent Ventures 和 1517 的早期支持。Alteon 目前在班加罗尔拥有 20 人的团队，并在一个 10,000 平方英尺的设施中运营。Sanghvi 表示，该公司每周制造四到五架飞机用于测试，并在过去 30 天内进行了 200 多次试飞。