• The three startups working with Airbus are Stelae Technology, EFLIGHT and Airpix
• The aim of partnership is to strengthen GenNext aviation solutions
• The partnership comes at the time of the culmination of TAKE OFF 2018 programme
Airbus subsidiaries NAVBLUE and Aerial have signed partnerships with three Indian startups — Stelae technology, EFLIGHT, and Airpix (accelerated at Airbus Bizlab India) — to power cutting-edge technologies that will help usher in new industry benchmarks in aeronautical data services, flight operations, and imagery services.
NAVBLUE signed up Bengaluru-based Stelae Technologies to enhance aeronautical data services quality and consistency while enabling a faster introduction to the market of the next generation fully data-driven and connected EFB (Electronic Flight Bag) solution.
NAVBLUE also extended its agreement with EFLIGHT with the aim of providing a comprehensive service solution to the Indian business aviation market.
On the development, Fabrice Villaume, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, NAVBLUE, said, “We are very excited to work with startups and SMEs in India to help power this growth, and bring value to the Indian aviation industry with our integrated solutions. NAVBLUE believes in India’s potential for multiple reasons. One is India’s proven capacity for innovation within the IT sector, which is demonstrated perfectly by the startups present at the Airbus’ BizLab, with whom we work very closely. Another is the potential of the aerospace industry; India has the world’s fastest-growing domestic airline market.”
The third agreement was between Airbus Aerial and Navi Mumbai-based Airpix with an aim to provide geo-analytic solutions and imagery services in the country.
Commenting on the partnership, Bruno Gutierres, Global Head, Airbus BizLab, said, “For the last couple of years I have been convinced with the potential and the quality of entrepreneurs in India. I am pleased to see that all these partnerships between Airbus and Indian startups are proving me right.”
The partnership came at the time when season 3 of Airbus BizLabs’ startup acceleration programme TAKE OFF 2018 is coming to an end. The programme seeks to bolster the Indian government’s ‘Make in India’ and ‘Startup India’ initiatives.
What Is Airbus TAKE OFF 2018 Programme?
The acceleration programme for startups and internal projects gives access to a large number of coaches, experts and mentors in various domains that help startups and internal projects speed up their ideas into valuable business.
Under the TAKE OFF programme, Airbus BizLab will be sponsoring two travels to Europe for Indian startups in a period of six months and will be providing funds up to 50K euros as a demonstration of proof of concept.
Here are some details about the three selected startups:
Airpix: Airpix works to offer 3D drone analytics, automated data interpretation, aerial data visualisation and measurement solution amongst others. The company has customers from the government, and industries from sectors like infrastructure, mining, and agriculture.
Stelae Technologies: Stelae Technologies is an enterprise software product company that works to transform unstructured documents to structured, searchable and analyzable outputs Json (for Big Data), S1000d and ATA (for Aerospace and Defence) and DITA (for Manufacturing).
EFLIGHT: EFLIGHT is India’s first complete Trip Support Company that has been created to simplify and automate the entire flight planning process. It serves more than 40 Business Aviation clients in India and handles on an average of 150 flights a day.
This isn’t the first time that Airbus has enabled partnerships between its subsidiaries and Indian startups. Earlier, it Airbus and NAVBLUE had signed contracts with two Indian startups: Neewee and EFLIGHT. In the second cohort of the accelerator programme, which kicked off in January 2017, Airbus BizLab selected six startups including Neewee and EFLIGHT.
Also, in July 2017, BizLab partnered with Airbus Ventures to set up a fund for aerospace and non-aerospace tech startups in India.
With a corpus of $150 Mn, Airbus Ventures has reportedly poured money into 13 startups in Israel, Japan, Europe, and North America. Airbus Ventures also invests in up-and-coming startups in domains like electric and renewable power, IoT, autonomous vehicles, and cybersecurity.
