Voliro AG, a spin-off from ETH Zurich founded in 2019 and currently accelerated at Wyss Zurich, has closed a CHF 2.0 million seed round. The investment allows the start-up to speed up the development process and to package the technology into an industrial grade product.
Regular inspection of aging critical infrastructure such as bridges, silos, storage tanks, ship hulls, and pipes is crucial in order to guarantee continuous operation. These inspections are often in difficult to reach areas and expose humans to high levels of risk such as falling from height or entering confined spaces. This is where Voliro comes in, with its flying inspection robot.
Voliro has already demonstrated strong traction across various industries, for example the oil and gas, petrochemicals, maritime, infrastructure and energy sectors. With the seed round, Voliro will accelerate the development of its industrial grade flying inspection robots. The round was led by Alpana Ventures, with participation from BackBone Ventures, Zürcher Kantonalbank, and a group of prominent Swiss Angels.
The robots are capable of performing in-depth structural integrity assessments using advanced inspection technologies. This minimizes human operators’ exposure to hazardous environments while ensuring high quality inspection data. Voliro’s flying robots, with the unique and patent-pending capability to approach structures at any orientation, can significantly reduce inspection costs and time, while offering various Non-Destructive Testing capabilities.
Mina Kamel, CEO and Co-founder of Voliro AG, states: “We are very happy and excited to welcome the new investors onboard. Together we are revolutionizing work at height. Critical infrastructure in many industries is aging and it is essential to develop innovative ways to perform regular inspections and maintenance, to ensure the safety and integrity of structures.”
Timo Müller, Product Lead and Co-founder of Voliro AG, says: “The additional investment allows us to speed up the development process and to package the amazing technology into an industrial grade product.”
Alexander Fries, Co-founder of Alpana Ventures, based in Silicon Valley, comments: “Pioneering technology combined with an outstanding team makes Voliro extremely well positioned to open new frontiers in the inspection and maintenance markets. Alpana Ventures led the investment round because Voliro demonstrated that its groundbreaking technology allows various industries to perform asset inspection and maintenance more safely, more efficiently, at a better quality and a lower cost, than the competition. By adding senses like sight and touch, they allow service drones to interact with their environment. The insights and benefits provided would allow significant cost reduction to customers. Furthermore, Voliro’s team members come from the prestigious ETH Zurich with strong experience in robotics and autonomous systems.”
Philippe Bernet, founding partner of BackBone Ventures comments: “Voliro has developed a platform technology and a product that solves a tremendous pain on the one hand and opens up opportunities for new and highly valuable services for clients on the other hand. The addressable market is substantial and the very dedicated founders managed to build a complementary team and a strong network of supporters. Those promising factors together make us proud to be part of this financing round together with our network of investors.”
(Press release / SK)
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