Portuguese tech start-up BladeInsight secures strategic investment from Swire Energy Services
Portuguese technology start-up BladeInsight announced today an investment by global provider of services supporting the energy industry, Swire Energy Services (SES), resulting in a majority shareholding.
The investment will consolidate the BladeInsight value proposition to deliver optimization of operation and maintenance (O&M) of wind energy infrastructure through automation and digitalization, empowering owners to deliver higher output and optimise their yields from investment, driving down the cost of wind energy. It will reinforce the global reach of BladeInsight technology, enabling significant growth of the company.
This strategic partnership with SES is the latest milestone for BladeInsight in its most successful year since its founding in 2015, as recognised by the ScaleUp Portugal Report 2020. With 15 GW of wind energy already inspected with its technology, the company now reasserts its commitment to boosting the competitiveness of renewables, contributing to the energy transition through optimization of O&M of wind turbine blades. BladeInsight provides a suite of robotics and data analytics solutions on a cloud based platform delivering data-driven decision-making for better efficiency and longer lifetime of assets.
Andre Moura, CEO and Founder of Bladeinsight said "With this investment, we establish ourselves on the next level of scale and value delivery for our customers, offering inspections and digitalization solutions to optimize O&M onshore and offshore, with a truly global outlook. We share with SES common values and an ambitious vision for the wind industry, in which technological innovation will play a pivotal role.”
Sabine Weth, VP Offshore Wind of Swire Energy Services adds, "This investment marks our first in the wind industry and is testament to the commitment and work by André and his team. We have been incredibly impressed by the technology and are thrilled that the management team share our vision and strategy for the future development of the company.
We see this investment as an opportunity to leverage the advanced drone technology and data platform to support the development of specialised and highly cost-efficient services in the offshore wind industry going forward. As part of our long-term strategy, supported by our parent company John Swire and Sons, technology will form an integral aspect of SES developing a sustainable business that can support our customers through the energy transition and beyond.”
BladeInsight was founded in 2015 with an idea: to develop a disruptive technological solution to simplify the inspection of wind turbine blades with autonomous drones, making the operation safer, cheaper and with higher quality. Since entering the market in 2017, BladeInsight technology has been used in 20,000 inspections with more than 4,000 hours of autonomous flight. Currently, in addition to the blade inspection solution, BladeInsight offers complementary software and data analytics tools that help to optimize O&M management on a cloud platform, incorporating machine learning.
Throughout its journey since ideation, BladeInsight, formerly known as Pro-Drone, was widely acknowledged in the start-up ecosystem nationally and internationally, with several awards and, in 2019, the attribution of an EU Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator project (SME Instrument Phase 2 - Innovation).
About BladeInsight
BladeInsight develops technological solutions which provide visibility over the state of wind turbine blades and actionable insights for more assertive decision-making on blade maintenance, leveraging robotics and data analytics on a cloud platform, driving down the cost of blade O&M. These solutions include an O&M asset management platform for the full lifecycle of the wind turbine as well as an autonomous drone inspection solution, for safe, cost-effective high quality inspections.
To date, BladeInsight has operations in Europe, North and South America through a global network of licensed partners.
Based at Incubadora TagusPark, in Oeiras, Portugal, investors that now leave BladeInsight for this new phase of the company include InnoEnergy, WavEC, Katapult Accelerator and Betwixt Ventures.
About Swire Energy Services
Swire Energy Services has been supporting the oil and gas industry for over 42 years, with over 500 employees from its 56 bases, across 28 countries. Today, Swire Energy Services fully integrated service offering combines expert experience and cutting-edge technology to service the energy world with smart, connected services for the Oil & Gas and Offshore Wind industry.
Find out more at www.swirees.com
14 June 2021
Portuguese technology start-up BladeInsight announced today an investment by global provider of services supporting the energy industry, Swire Energy Services (SES), resulting in a majority shareholding.
The investment will consolidate the BladeInsight value proposition to deliver optimization of operation and maintenance (O&M) of wind energy infrastructure through automation and digitalization, empowering owners to deliver higher output and optimise their yields from investment, driving down the cost of wind energy. It will reinforce the global reach of BladeInsight technology, enabling significant growth of the company.
This strategic partnership with SES is the latest milestone for BladeInsight in its most successful year since its founding in 2015, as recognised by the ScaleUp Portugal Report 2020. With 15 GW of wind energy already inspected with its technology, the company now reasserts its commitment to boosting the competitiveness of renewables, contributing to the energy transition through optimization of O&M of wind turbine blades. BladeInsight provides a suite of robotics and data analytics solutions on a cloud based platform delivering data-driven decision-making for better efficiency and longer lifetime of assets.
Andre Moura, CEO and Founder of Bladeinsight said "With this investment, we establish ourselves on the next level of scale and value delivery for our customers, offering inspections and digitalization solutions to optimize O&M onshore and offshore, with a truly global outlook. We share with SES common values and an ambitious vision for the wind industry, in which technological innovation will play a pivotal role.”
Sabine Weth, VP Offshore Wind of Swire Energy Services adds, "This investment marks our first in the wind industry and is testament to the commitment and work by André and his team. We have been incredibly impressed by the technology and are thrilled that the management team share our vision and strategy for the future development of the company.
We see this investment as an opportunity to leverage the advanced drone technology and data platform to support the development of specialised and highly cost-efficient services in the offshore wind industry going forward. As part of our long-term strategy, supported by our parent company John Swire and Sons, technology will form an integral aspect of SES developing a sustainable business that can support our customers through the energy transition and beyond.”
BladeInsight was founded in 2015 with an idea: to develop a disruptive technological solution to simplify the inspection of wind turbine blades with autonomous drones, making the operation safer, cheaper and with higher quality. Since entering the market in 2017, BladeInsight technology has been used in 20,000 inspections with more than 4,000 hours of autonomous flight. Currently, in addition to the blade inspection solution, BladeInsight offers complementary software and data analytics tools that help to optimize O&M management on a cloud platform, incorporating machine learning.
Throughout its journey since ideation, BladeInsight, formerly known as Pro-Drone, was widely acknowledged in the start-up ecosystem nationally and internationally, with several awards and, in 2019, the attribution of an EU Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator project (SME Instrument Phase 2 - Innovation).
About BladeInsight
BladeInsight develops technological solutions which provide visibility over the state of wind turbine blades and actionable insights for more assertive decision-making on blade maintenance, leveraging robotics and data analytics on a cloud platform, driving down the cost of blade O&M. These solutions include an O&M asset management platform for the full lifecycle of the wind turbine as well as an autonomous drone inspection solution, for safe, cost-effective high quality inspections.
To date, BladeInsight has operations in Europe, North and South America through a global network of licensed partners.
Based at Incubadora TagusPark, in Oeiras, Portugal, investors that now leave BladeInsight for this new phase of the company include InnoEnergy, WavEC, Katapult Accelerator and Betwixt Ventures.
About Swire Energy Services
Swire Energy Services has been supporting the oil and gas industry for over 42 years, with over 500 employees from its 56 bases, across 28 countries. Today, Swire Energy Services fully integrated service offering combines expert experience and cutting-edge technology to service the energy world with smart, connected services for the Oil & Gas and Offshore Wind industry.
Find out more at www.swirees.com
14 June 2021
About InnoEnergy
EIT InnoEnergy is the leading engine for innovation and entrepreneurship in sustainable energy, across Europe and beyond.
EIT InnoEnergy has invested in and provided added value services to some 300 sustainable energy related innovators.
"We are proud of having had BladeInsight as part of our ecosystem since 2014. When it joined, it was still an idea and we are very happy to have been of a part of the company’s journey, helping it grow and expand to new markets. Blade Insight has benefited from our services including access to our ecosystem, sales support, access to talent and exclusive industry events. We congratulate Blade Insight for this achievement and wish them the best of success for this new stage ahead."
Know more at www.innoenergy.com.
EIT InnoEnergy has invested in and provided added value services to some 300 sustainable energy related innovators.
"We are proud of having had BladeInsight as part of our ecosystem since 2014. When it joined, it was still an idea and we are very happy to have been of a part of the company’s journey, helping it grow and expand to new markets. Blade Insight has benefited from our services including access to our ecosystem, sales support, access to talent and exclusive industry events. We congratulate Blade Insight for this achievement and wish them the best of success for this new stage ahead."
Know more at www.innoenergy.com.
About WavEC
WavEC provides professional engineering services and RD&I support in the marine renewable energy sector and related areas. With a multidisciplinary team we have been expanding our competences to offshore aquaculture and other ocean engineering solutions.
"We are so pleased to see BladeInsight reach this new phase in their growth in delivering value to the wind industry, having accompanied the foundation and growth of the company from the outset alongside André Moura, who began his career in offshore wind at WavEC."
Know more at www.wavec.org.
"We are so pleased to see BladeInsight reach this new phase in their growth in delivering value to the wind industry, having accompanied the foundation and growth of the company from the outset alongside André Moura, who began his career in offshore wind at WavEC."
Know more at www.wavec.org.
About Katapult
Katapult is an early stage impact investment and accelerator vehicle, focused on highly scalable impact tech startups. We work to make impact investing mainstream and mobilize capital and businesses to deliver positive impact. We accelerate and invest in tech companies solving the world’s greatest challenges. This is representing the fastest growing markets and therefore the greatest business opportunities. We have so far invested in 120 companies from 32 different countries.
“Having been able to work with André in the scope of the Katapult Accelerator and accompany the company's evolution ever since as an investor, it is a pleasure to see the company now reach a new phase in its growth and expansion. All our best to the BladeInsight team for the future!"
Know more katapult.vc.
“Having been able to work with André in the scope of the Katapult Accelerator and accompany the company's evolution ever since as an investor, it is a pleasure to see the company now reach a new phase in its growth and expansion. All our best to the BladeInsight team for the future!"
Know more katapult.vc.
About Betwixt
Betwixt Ventures is a micro Venture Capital company incorporated in 2015 which has invested on early stage startups with high potential, primarily within the Tech and Energy sectors, based out of Portugal.
“BladeInsight was our first investment about five years ago. Throughout this period, we have followed the whole development of this startup from a bit more than an idea into a promising company which may have a say in the competitive renewable energy landscape in the future. We trust we have also given our little contribution to its growth along this journey and we feel rewarded that BladeInsight is now moving into a new ball game with this strategic acquisition”.
“BladeInsight was our first investment about five years ago. Throughout this period, we have followed the whole development of this startup from a bit more than an idea into a promising company which may have a say in the competitive renewable energy landscape in the future. We trust we have also given our little contribution to its growth along this journey and we feel rewarded that BladeInsight is now moving into a new ball game with this strategic acquisition”.
