With Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality hogging all the limelight, Mixed Reality (MR) news took the backseat for a while. However, the truth is that MR is currently being employed for specific tasks and serves for different specific applications within varying sectors. One such sector is aviation where the Budapest-based startup AerinX developed an innovative application for Mixed Reality. The company develops and provides digital aircraft maintenance solutions and it has now secured €2 million in VC investment.
Latest investment will help AerinX go global
AerinX has raised €2 million in its pre-series A round which was led by DBH Investment managed Takarék Venture Capital Fund I. With the freshly acquired funds, the company will not only accelerate its technological research and development but also plans to enter international markets.
“With the venture capital investment received from Takarék Group, we hope to accelerate market entry planned for early 2021. In the coming 6-9 months we are going to continue our R&D activity to finetune and extend the functionality of our smart aircraft inspection system. We are especially glad that over the past year we managed to grow the company valuation of AerinX significantly, which was acclaimed by Takarék Group with its investment,” says Antal Bence Kiss, Co-Founder and CEO of AerinX added.
Hi-tech MR solutions for aircraft checks and maintenance
Budapest-based AerinX was co-founded back in 2015 by the company’s CEO Bence Kiss and CTO Zoltán Wéber. After pre-seed and seed rounds back in the past couple of years, the company raised €449,000 and now has raised €2 million in VC investment. This was all made possible by innovative hi-tech solutions the company developed.
The company’s first offering is an MR-based aircraft inspection system that assists professionals with external surface checks of airplanes and other aircrafts, together with the related maintenance tasks. The service is said to notably accelerate workflows and has been in use, in test phase, since the beginning of 2020 by Aeroplex of Central Europe, which is one the largest MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) companies in Central Europe.
Alongside Aeroplex, other major international aircraft maintenance companies will soon adopt AerinX’s MR system within the frameworks of the company’s Early Adopter Program.
“Takarék Venture Capital Fund sees huge potential in the smart aircraft inspection system developed by AerinX, which absolutely fits into the major digitalisation processes currently affecting the aircraft industry worldwide. In our opinion, the company will be able to gain significant market share in the aircraft maintenance industry, achieving a dominant position among technologies emerging,” says Marcell Horváth, CEO of DBH Investment, fund management company of Takarék Venture Capital Fund.
In the earlier seed funding round, X-Ventures Gamma Venture Capital Fund increased capital in AerinX and maintains its ownership share in the company. The startup is also planning a Series A round of funding within the next 12-18 months involving international investors to accelerate international growth.