Aerones a startup intending to enhance the possibilities for wind power through better turbine maintenance and inspection has received $30 million in expansion funding. As demand increases, the Riga-based team is now prepared to advance its expansion strategy.
Lightrock, along with Haniel, took the lead in raising the €27.7 million in expansion capital. Existing investors Change Ventures, Mantas Mikuckas, Metaplanet, Pace Ventures, and Future Positive Capital are among the other round participants.
Innovations are being made to create a greener and more sustainable society for future generations since there is an increasing need for green technologies worldwide.
The energy transition, a drive toward the use of entirely renewable, non-harmful energy sources, is a crucial component of this. One form of energy that is gaining popularity is wind energy, and now researchers are searching for methods to make it even more effective and available.
Since there is an increasing need for this energy source, things need to change because maintaining wind turbines at the moment is difficult and expensive. After getting further funding, Aerones is prepared to scale its robot-enabled wind turbine maintenance and inspection service.
The proper operation of the world’s wind power capacity is our purpose, and our robot-enabled solutions have never been more crucial or in demand, according to Dainis Kruze, co-founder and CEO of Aerones. We anticipate expanding our business, putting money into technology, and improving our product with the help of both new and current investors.
Aerones, a Ycombinator company that was founded in 2019, began by offering simple inspection services before expanding to offer a full range of inspection, maintenance, and repair services for wind turbines. These services include external visual, internal blade, lighting protection, and ultrasound inspections.
The Riga-based business wants to provide wind operators all over the world with services that are quicker, safer, and more efficient. With the use of its toolkit, wind turbine blades and towers may be maintained intelligently and predictably, increasing their effectiveness and reducing their running costs. Currently, a large portion of this job is carried out by certified rope access experts, who are expensive, hard to come by, and unable to work inclement weather.
The $30 billion wind energy maintenance business is claimed by Aerones to be 40% more effective, 40% safer, and 6x faster than present techniques.
Because of this, the business has expanded quickly since its 2019 launch. Siemens, Vestas, NextEra, and Enel are just a few of the clients of Aerones that account for 50% of the world’s wind power capacity.
“Aerones has developed a unique robotic platform that produces actual ROI for customers in a significant growth area,” says Nigel McCleave of Lightrock. We’re thrilled to support Dainis, Janis, and the entire Aerones team as they work to improve costs and inefficiencies throughout the world’s wind sector.
With this additional cash in hand, Aerones intends to expand its workforce, hire more field-deployed robot service teams, enhance its footprint in quickly developing markets like Africa and Australia, and launch new services.
“We are proud to work with Aerones, which is reinventing how wind turbines will be serviced going ahead,” says Philipp Goehre, Growth Capital Lead at Haniel. The company is a great fit for our climate tech investment focus, and we will actively support it by utilizing both our network and our knowledge.
Image Credit: Aerones
