Airbus Arm Intends To Buy Stake In Indian Startups

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BizLab, European plane-maker Airbus’ aerospace business accelerator is open to picking up stake in Indian startups it works with, as per media reports. 

Bruno Gutierres added, however, that there is no concrete plan yet. If and when an equity participation happens, it will be a departure from Airbus BizLab’s usual way of funding the startups which are only limited to their business initiatives proofs of concepts. BizLab funds each proof of concept with a maximum of 50,000 euro (Rs 39,80,000).

Earlier in the day, Airbus subsidiaries Navblue and Aerial signed contracts with three Indian startups, accelerated at Airbus Bizlab India, in fields of aeronautical data services, flight operations and imagery. 

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Navblue, Airbus’ solutions provider for flight operations and air traffic management, signed up Bengaluru-based Stelae Technologies to work for better solutions in aeronautical data services. It also extended an agreement with EFlight, a startup it brought under its wing last year. The third agreement was signed between Aerial, Airbus’ new commercial drone startup and Navi Mumbai-based Airpix to provide geo-analytic solutions and imagery services in India.

Since 2015, BizLab has accelerated 50 startups and 40 internal projects, which have raised a combined 19.5 million (155.30 crores). It has facilities in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany apart from the one in Bengaluru and recently opened one in Madrid, Spain.

Last year Eflight and another Bengaluru-based startup Neewee signed contracts with Airbus and Navblue. Neewee uses analytics and artificial intelligence to improve manufacturing supply chain and procurement operations, while EFlight has developed a solution that optimises a pilot’s response to different flight conditions.

The BizLab programme is designed for aerospace and other startups with products/solutions that can be adapted for in segments such as robotics, internet of things, data analytics, virtual/augmented reality, supply chain, fintech, gaming and manufacturing. BizLab supports the startups in a six-month acceleration programme. 

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