Venture capital arm of European aircraft maker, Airbus Ventures, said it was in the process of setting up an independent investment vehicle in India to put money in aerospace and non-aerospace start ups. Francois Auque, chairman of the fund's general partner entity said, “The financing vehicle should be ready by next year.” While the size of the India fund is yet to be determined, Airbus Ventures will invest in the country by associating with Airbus Bizlab, the aerospace business accelerator with a presence in Bengaluru.
The company said it always co-invests with other companies, with funding ranging from 750,000 euros for a seed round to about 3 million euros for Series A for about 10 per cent stake. The funding can go up to 5 million euros for a single company, any higher investment requires the nod of the parent body.
Auque said, “We have a few companies in Bizlab in India where we could invest. We are speaking with them and understanding their business model.” He said that Airbus Ventures is yet to invest in any company that has graduated out of its Bizlabs. Auque added that may be because while the Bizlabs look for an immediate application for Airbus, the financing arm looks long term to invest even in non-aerospace companies, in areas such as autonomous vehicles, electric energy, IoT and cyber security.
Bizlab Bengaluru, which saw the culmination of its second accelerator programme of five companies, said it had identified some 100 startups working in areas such as data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and image processing and with which it proposes to engage. "These were selected because they had an immediate solution to some of Airbus' pain points. We are looking at having 400 by the year end," Siddharth Balachandran, Airbus Bizlab leader, India, said.
