Delair-Tech raises $ 14.5 million!

Delair-Tech has unveiled its acceleration strategy to extend its leadership in the professional drone market. With $14.5 million in fundraising, Delair-Tech is continuing its in- ternational expansion (opening two subsidiaries in Australia and the United States), strengthening its capacity for the design and production of professional industrial drones and opening Delair-Ser- vices, offering “all inclusive” aerial imaging solutions to major industrial groups.

“By creating Delair-Services, we are outreaching to clients who wish to take advantage of this booming technology to improve the management of their business on a daily basis. Delair-Services provides turnkey results, focused on strategic issues and produced by experts, preventing the need for our clients to create an internal drone system”, explains Michaël de Lagarde, CEO of Delair-Tech.

$14.5 million in fundraising to support the growth strategy

Delair-Tech is announcing new fundraising of $14.5 million, in particular from Andromède, who becomes the company’s largest investor. BPI (Banque Publique d’Investissement) has also granted a loan to Delair-Tech to support its acceleration strategy

“We are thrilled to become shareholders in Delair-Tech, a company which embodies French technological excellence, serving the largest industrial groups in France and throughout the world. With this investment, Andromède is affirming its determination to be a key investor in the professional civil drone sector, an area of particular interest”, stated François Morinière, Advisor to the Andromède Board of Directors, a Hériard Dubreuil family holding company.

“The BPI has followed Delair-Tech since its inception. This year, the Toulouse company were among a group of hypergrowth start-ups selected to partake in the HUB. Today, they are a rising star of Industry 4.0. Delair-Tech is a promising company to follow, that confirm France leading position on the drone market. We are proud to keep supporting them”, said Cécile Brosset, BPI Hub Director.

“On 11th March 2011, when we created our start-up, we were just four determined engineers. Exactly five years later, almost 50 people have joined us in this adventure, and with them, their investment, and their passion, we are a company achieving incredible growth and now present in over thirty different countries. We are very proud of our progress, but this is only the beginning; we still have everything to achieve. The world is our playing field, we want to become market leaders in geo-referenced data. As such, 2016 will be a pivotal year for us to develop these ambitions”, said Michaël Lagarde, CEO of Delair-Tech.

With this investment, Delair-Tech now has the means to conduct its 2016 strategic development plan, based on three pillars:

Building up our offer of decision-support solutions for aerial imagery, with the launch of DelairServices:

Delair-Tech intends to focus on the development of future applications with innovative tools and services dedicated to the analysis of aerial images and data processing. Since certification in 2012, which allows Delair-Tech drones to fly fully automatically and out-of-sight, clients have been able to embark on large-scale missions, enabling them to gain unique experience and insight. Large industrial groups which rely on Delair-Tech are managers of rail infrastructures, electrics, petroleum, highways, mining, and agriculture.

Based on this cumulative experience, Delair-Tech has developed specific expertise for each type of business, and has been able to design simple and flexible solutions enabling the acquisition, manipulation and analysis of data by combining multiple sources of geographic information from its sensors alongside other systems developed by the aeronautics and aerospace industries.

Thus Delair-Tech is now able to offer a coherent and comprehensive range, covering the entire value chain, from acquisition to data processing via custom formatting by field and customer expectations. This desire to combine the best high-tech drones with the power of Big Data, creating an all-in-one solution, is reflected in the 2016 launch of Delair-Services, a dedicated entity, designed to bring turnkey support solutions for decision making to managers.

Accelerating international development:

Already present in some thirty countries, Delair-Tech is seeking to accelerate its global expansion significantly in 2016 in order to operate in all five continents and to develop a local services relationship with clients, especially major accounts abroad. Delair-Tech is already present in the Australian market with a subsidiary created in January 2016. A subsidiary is expected to be opened in the US in the second half of 2016 and plans for a Chinese subsidiary are also underway.

Confirming its position as a technological pioneer with high-end, high performance products designed for professionals:

Delair-Tech aims to maintain its position as a technology leader with the design and manufacturing of high added value products at its workshop in Toulouse, the birthplace of the aeronautical and aerospace sectors.

Confident that there is real added value to finding pragmatic solutions to these complex issues, the directors of Delair-Tech aim to continue developing increasingly safer drones which are more reliable, more durable and more oriented towards the quality of measured data.

The Toulouse ecosystem, where Delair-Tech is based, is at the forefront of satellite data processing which allows innovative solutions to be developed for the acquisition, processing and global provision of georeferenced data, meeting the needs and challenges of industrial clients.

Reducing the use of herbicides and fertilisers, protecting the integrity of pipelines, avoiding blackouts, and reducing road-traffic accidents are all challenges which the directors of Delair-Tech wish to tackle alongside their clients.

A business partner for major companies

With unprecedented technological expertise in drone manufacturing, image processing and data analysis, Delair-Tech assists major industrial groups in both their current business focuses and discovering new business opportunities.

A business partner for major companies With unprecedented technological expertise in drone manufacturing, image processing and data analysis, Delair-Tech assists major industrial groups in both their current business focuses and discovering new business opportunities.

Michael Cordonnier, ERDF Head of Technical Division, Department of Expertise, Equipment and Supplier Relations, said, “With its long-range drones, Delair-Tech allows us to perform line inspections in an innovative way whilst improving the quality of restitution compared to current pruning solutions. We are closely monitoring the launch of this French start-up and the business opportunities that will result from it.”

A propos de Delair-Tech

Delair-Tech, a global leader in professional drones, supports corporate decision-making choices with its longrange drones and unique processing of their images. Founded in 2011 by four engineers, the Toulouse start-up provides unrivalled professional data, collected and analysed by the only drones in the world which are certified for flight operations out of the sight of the pilot. Delair-Tech offers an integrated data processing solution to support decision making in all sectors of the industry. Delair-Tech has over 50 employees and is already present in some thirty countries. The start-up is involved in many fields such as agriculture, infrastructure, energy, and construction.

About Andromède

Andromède SAS is the investment holding company of the Hériard Dubreuil family. Its aim is to acquire interests in high-growth companies wherever possible, in sectors linking hi-tech and prestige, as well driving and supporting these projects with their development in France and internationally. In this respect, Andromède SAS holds stakes in listed and unlisted companies, in particular Rémy Cointreau, Oeneo, Webster, Pro Drones investments and Delair-Tech. Rémy Cointreau is a specialised leader in very high-end wines and spirits. Oeneo includes two high-tech activities in the wine sector: ageing and corking. Webster is a US distributor of highly prestigious fashion brands. Pro Drones and Delair-Tech are professional civilian drone companies.

About Bpifrance

Investments into Bpifrance’s equity are run by Bpifrance Investment. Bpifrance, a subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts and the State and trusted partner of entrepreneurs, supports companies from creation to stock exchange listing, with credit, collateral and equity. Bpifrance provides further support services and enhanced support for innovation, external growth and exports in partnership with UBIFRANCE and Coface. Bpifrance offers companies a funding continuum at each key stage of their development and services tailored to regional specificities. With 42 regional offices (90% of decisions made regionally) Bpifrance is a tool for economic competitiveness for entrepreneurs. Bpifrance acts in support of public policies established by the State and by Regions to meet three objectives: • support business growth; • prepare future competitiveness; • contribute to the development of a favourable ecosystem for entrepreneurship. With Bpifrance, companies benefit from powerful, close and effective support to meet all their needs in terms of funding, innovation and investment. More information at: www.bpifrance.fr –  www.bpifrance-lehub.fr – Follow us on Twitter: @bpifrance @bpifrancelehub #bpifrancehub

About EDF

ERDF combines all of the electricity distribution business in France. ERDF is a utility, the manager of the electricity distribution network in 95% of France and employs 38 000 people. With 35 million customers, it develops, operates, and maintains 1.4 million kilometers of low and medium voltage networks (220 and 20,000 volts) and manages the associated data. ERDF executes client connections, troubleshooting, meter reading and all technical interventions 24/7. It is independent of energy suppliers who are responsible for the sale and management of the electricity supply contracts.

About SNCF Networks

EPIC SNCF ensures strategic control, economic consistency, industrial integration, unity and social cohesion within the EPIC SNCF network (Infrastructure Manager) and SNCF Mobility (RU). The drone unit of the SNCF, an entity attached to SNCF network, is positioned as an internal drone provider and ensures data collections, treatment and recovery of data using unmanned aircraft. Operating a fleet of a dozen drones, the drone unit conducts daily interventions in safety, waste management (intrusion detection) and maintenance (mapping and network inspection).