For most deeptech entrepreneurs, the hardest lesson is not solving complex physics but overcoming their own technical fascination. Professor Satya Chakravarthy, Founder and technical lead of The ePlane Company, explained this clearly at TechSparks 2026, YourStory's flagship event.

“The biggest challenge that a deep tech entrepreneur normally would face is what I call the technology trap,” he said. “We have to actually ask the question who cares, and the moment you actually ask the question who cares... even your wife doesn’t care.”

Chakravarthy, an aerospace professor at IIT Madras, founded the company to develop electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs. These are battery-powered flying vehicles capable of hovering, taking off, and landing vertically without a runway. 

In a sector often driven by academic prestige, Chakravarthy insists that financial fundamentals must lead engineering ambitions. For deeptech startups, companies built on breakthroughs in science and engineering, long development timelines and heavy capital commitments mean that technological novelty alone cannot survive. 

In aerospace, he notes, becoming a unicorn is merely the minimum baseline, and founders must build business cases capable of reaching decacorn scale through healthy revenues and margins.

The inspiration for ePlane stemmed from a visit to Toulouse, France, where Chakravarthy discovered that 50 smaller aircraft manufacturers existed alongside global giants. 

“If there are 50 plane companies in France, maybe plane making is not so difficult... ” he recalled. Coming from an academic institution accustomed to international standards, he aimed to build a world-class aircraft directly out of India.

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