10 AI & autonomy startups join Aerospace Xelerated

Nichola Bates, Managing Partnerat Aerospace Xelerated and Head of Global Accelerators and Innovation Programs at Boeing commented: “We ended 2021 with a great success from our previous programmes. HiiROC announced a £26M funding round which included Melrose Industries, the owners of our programme partner GKN Aerospace, who met the HiiROC team through the accelerator last year. Proving that by bringing together startups with industry through our programme, great things can happen.”

Bates continued, “We’re incredibly excited to welcome our new cohort who are using groundbreaking technologies to solve some incredibly complex problems for the aerospace industry. From making it easier and efficient to gather complex data for aircraft maintenance teams to building the technology to enable unmanned flight, we can’t wait to see what comes out of the 12 weeks ahead.”

Cohort three will benefit from an optional £100k equity investment from Boeing, introductions to a network of angels, venture capitalists and the wider aerospace industry, and over £100K in programme perks from partners including startup providers Amazon, HubSpot, SeedLegals and many more.

Alongside Boeing, programme partners GKN Aerospace and the Ministry of Defence’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA), will provide the cohort with industry insights and expertise. The companies will have access to strategists and technical experts for support in developing proof of concept opportunities and receive mentoring from a global network of experienced entrepreneurs, mentors and investors.

The ten AI and autonomous technology startups joining cohort three cover the programme’s key focuses; assured autonomy, autonomous navigation, adaptive learning, generative design, smart maintenance and reduced workload. 

Amongst the founding teams, 60% are first-time founders, 30% have a female founder, and 20% are minority ethnic. 70% of the companies are seed stage. 60% of the teams have an office in the UK, and 20% are operating teams remotely around the world. 

The cohort includes: 

• Amygda (Derby, UK) - a data observability platform for smart maintenance in high-value asset industries to reduce unnecessary maintenance and increase the reliability and sustainability of assets. 
• The Airline Pilot Club (Dublin, Ireland) - a digital talent marketplace using AI and behavioural science to break down barriers to entry and improve quality standards in the pilot selection, training and recruitment process. 
• Axion (US) - an AI-powered proactive management platform for engineering and quality leaders to accelerate development.
• Flare Bright (Aylesbury, UK) - the machine-learning company enables drone manufacturers to build digital twins to rapidly speed up the long test and evaluation process, running many times faster than real-time to optimise for more confident real-world tests.
• LexX Technologies (Melbourne, Australia) - LexX uses AI, machine learning and natural language processing to empower aircraft maintenance technicians to bring their data, knowledge, and experience together in one efficient and intelligent solution.
• Neurobotx (US) - the first neuromorphic AI platform for autonomous navigation, capable of one-microsecond obstacle detection and decision making based on big data, inspired by energy-efficient brain navigation.
• Pegasus Imagery (Edmonton, Canada) - develops autonomous aircraft and sensor systems to connect industry and government end-users with on-demand aerial imagery to solve challenges at scale.
• Sees.ai (Chichester & London, UK) - building the most advanced connected, autonomous command and control solution to enable safe and scalable unmanned flight in even the most challenging circumstances.
• Seidr (South Wales, UK) - a virtual learning and testing environment for crisis situations. Using immersive technology to generate novel conditions in safe-to-fail environments, so that plans and learning can be validated within evolving situations. 
• TOffeeAM (London, UK) - a SaaS company providing an integrated cloud-based solution for advanced manufacturing.

The two previous cohorts have gone on to raise over £50m in additional funding and create more than 100 jobs across the UK. At the end of 2021, cohort two startup HiiROC announced a £26M funding round, to expand the deployment of pilot units of its technology, producing affordable hydrogen at scale but without CO2 emissions. 

The programme will run for 12 weeks, culminating in a Demo Day in April 2022.