Malaysia’s global drone services company Aerodyne Group has raised US$30 million as part of its latest bridging round led by Petronas Ventures, the corporate VC arm of energy major Petronas.
The round also included a follow-on investment by KWAP, initially invested in Aerodyne in 2020.
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Petronas is Aerodyne’s long-time client. A memorandum of collaboration (MoC) was signed on April 21, 2022, between Aerodyne Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of Aerodyne Group and Petronas’s technology commercialisation arm Petronas Technology Ventures. It explores opportunities for deployment and commercialisation of drone-based solutions, as well as enabling remote and autonomous operations through the expansion of robotics and digitalisation.
The drone company will use the capital to support its expansion into Europe, Africa, Latin America and South Asia. A portion of the funds will also be utilised to support its agriculture scaling efforts and bring the solution to Indonesia and India.
It will also invest strategically in technology acquisition and enter the advanced air mobility space. A large-scale commercialisation plan for the air mobility solution is underway. This solution includes using heavy lifter drones, which can replace the more costly traditional methods and is well-suited for oil & gas operations such as shore-to-platform and platform-to-platform deliveries. This also accelerates extensive logistic operations, such as delivering medical supplies in rural areas and potentially in urban air mobility, where it can provide fast and cost-effective transportation shortly.
According to Kamarul A Muhamed, Founder and Group CEO of Aerodyne, the firm has plans to raise US$100-200 million shortly to bring Aerodyne to the next stage of its growth.
Established in 2014, Aerodyne is a DT3 (drone-tech, data-tech and digital transformation) company. It uses Artificial Intelligence as an enabler for large-scale data operations, analytics and process optimisation. Its flagship precision agriculture solution is powered by in-house developed AI capabilities, with more than 300,000 secured effective hectarages for major industry players in Malaysia.
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The group employs over 1,000 drone professionals in the UAS (unmanned aerial vehicle) services sector. It claims to have managed more than 560,000 infrastructure assets with 458,058 flight operations and surveyed over 380,000 km of power infrastructure across 35 countries.
Early this year, the group acquired a principal stake in Malaysia-based AI and data analytics company Synapse Innovation for an undisclosed amount. Last year, it announced a strategic investment from a consortium of Japanese investors, comprising Real Tech Fund, Kobashi Holdings and ACSL.
Two years earlier, the group secured US$30 million in a Series B investment round, led by InterVest/Kejora Ventures, with participation from VentureTECH, Gobi Partners and 500 Global. This round was extended with an investment from North Summit Capital, Arc Ventures, and Leave a Nest in February 2020.
In December 2019, Aerodyne acquired a controlling stake in the services business of Measure UAS, an aerial intelligence company in the US.
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