Aerodyne Group raises US$30mil as part of its latest bridging round, with Petronas as lead investor

• KWAP’s second investment in Aerodyne is a testament of investor’s confidence
• Plans to raise further capital in future, amounting to between US$100m to US$200m

Global drone service provider, Aerodyne Group announced today that it had raised US$30 million (RM137.4 million) as part of its latest bridging round.

Aerodyne’s long-time client PETRONAS, via its corporate venture capital arm Petronas Ventures, has led the funding round which also included a follow-on investment by KWAP, who initially invested in 2020.

Kamarul A Muhamed (pic), founder and Group CEO of Aerodyne said, “We’re delighted to welcome Petronas as an equity partner and are immensely proud of the conviction and support of our existing investor KWAP in our growth. We’re happy to have raised US$30 million through this bridging round, which will allow us to scale even further globally, especially supported by our new technology developments. We also have plans to raise further capital in near future, amounting to US$100 million to US$200 million to bring Aerodyne Group to the next stage of its growth, which we are very excited about.”

Arni Laily Anwarrudin, Head of Petronas Ventures said, “Aerodyne’s technology and solutions are aligned with Petronas Ventures’ investment focus in the space of Future of Facilities – and we strongly believe that this equity investment will strengthen our partnership further and unlock significant value for both Petronas and Aerodyne.”

Hazman Hilmi Sallahuddin, Chief Investment Officer of KWAP commented, “We are delighted to continue supporting Aerodyne in its next phase of growth. Since KWAP first invested in Aerodyne back in 2020, the company has seen rapid progress, expanding its business from a primarily local operation to becoming the top drone services company in the world.

“This follow-on investment forms part of our mandate to provide growth capital for local companies to scale up globally. In addition, our aim to support Malaysia’s high-skill and high-value economic activities with positive spill over effects to the local economy are in line with Aerodyne’s objectives. As an existing partner, KWAP is proud to be part of this journey to further propel Aerodyne’s global trajectory.”

The funds will be used to support Aerodyne’s further expansion into European, African, Latin American and South Asian territories, as well as strategic investment to further deepen Aerodyne’s technology edge and launch Aerodyne’s entry into the advanced air mobility space.

Part of the funds will be utilised to support Aerodyne’s agriculture scaling up efforts and bringing the solution into Indonesia and India.

Aerodyne’s precision agriculture solution powered by in-house developed AI capabilities, serves more than 300,000 secured effective hectarage for major industry players in Malaysia.

A large scale commercialisation plan for Aerodyne’s advanced air mobility solution is also already underway. This solution includes the use of heavy lifter drones, which can replace the more costly traditional methods and is well-suited for oil & gas operations such as shore-to-platform and platform-to-platform deliveries. This also accelerates large logistic operations such as delivery of medical supplies in rural areas, and potentially in urban air mobility where fast and cost-effective mode of transportation can be provided in near future.

A Memorandum of Collaboration (MoC) was signed on 21st April 2022 between Aerodyne Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of Aerodyne Group and Petronas’ technology commercialisation arm, Petronas Technology Ventures (PTVSB) to explore opportunities for deployment and commercialisation of drone-based solutions, as well as enabling remote and autonomous operations through the expansion of robotics and digitalisation.

Founded in 2014, Aerodyne is a DT3 (Drone Tech, Data Tech, and Digital Transformation) drone-based enterprise solutions provider, and a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence as an enabling technology for large-scale data operations, analytics and process optimisation with a presence in 35 countries.