Focus Areas

We focus our efforts on projects showing the potential of delivering a meaningful contribution to aviation sustainability and innovation.

Aircraft Design

A novel generation of aircraft concepts promises to decrease fuel consumption by 20% or more through higher aerodynamic efficiency and lower drag.

Challenges: Extremely long development and certification times, coupled with slow industry acceptance, artificially and detrimentally delay the introduction of novel aircraft architectures, pushing into the future the improvements that these innovative concepts would deliver.

Autonomy and Automation

Automation, autonomy, robotics and drones can boost efficiency in land and flight operations while opening a burgeoning range of opportunities for novel services and solutions. Likewise, when applied to production and maintenance, these technologies can bring costs down by orders of magnitude.

Challenges: In order to serve the aerospace and aviation industries, autonomous and automation technologies must provide the high standards of safety and reliability which are customary in these sectors. On a different level, these industries will face an increasing workforce shortage, which will impose replacing human workers with robotised solutions in airports, production, and MRO.

Aviation Safety

Despite aviation being one of the safest modes of transportation, safety remains an ongoing concern due to evolving technologies, growing traffic, environmental pressures, and human/systemic vulnerabilities.  

Challenges: Aviation safety still needs improvement in areas such as runway incursions, aircraft maintenance, automation overreliance and human factors (communication breakdowns and fatigue in pilots and controllers, among others). Congested airspace, outdated traffic systems, cybersecurity threats and emerging risks from drone and eVTOL interference demand urgent attention, as does the safe handling of lithium batteries and hazardous goods. Extreme weather and turbulence conditions resulting from climate change call for updated safety systems and training. 

Electric Aviation

While battery-powered propulsion grants true-zero flight, the energy density of present-generation batteries allows meaningful ranges only to airplanes up to 9-30 seats, remaining orders of magnitude below what’s required for long-haul flights. Based on technology trends, this won’t change soon. On a positive note, propulsion technologies such as electric ducted fans and distributed electric propulsion can already provide substantial advantages in STOL and VTOL operations.

Challenges: Safety is a concern due to the risk of thermal runaway and explosion in lithium batteries. Lifecycle is another issue: while the 1,000 charging cycles typical in today’s batteries easily result in a 300,000 km mileage for a car, they would last less than 6 months in aircraft operations. This would result in a massive number of batteries to be repurposed or recycled. Another environmental issue is related to the impact of mining the raw materials used in battery manufacturing.

Digital Solutions: AI, Data, and Computational Models

AI, digital twins, and advanced computational models increasingly benefit how we leverage data to achieve unprecedented operational efficiency. Likewise, these tools speed up the introduction of novel technology, systems, and aircraft by drastically reducing development, testing, and certification times.

Challenges: Aviation needs sustainable innovations now, not in 20 years. That's why the development and certification of new aircraft and technologies must be accelerated by exploiting the increasing prowess of simulation tools. On the other hand, AI and digital solutions must achieve the reliability that the aerospace and aviation sectors require.

Efficient Propulsion

Efficient propulsion relates to engine architectures based on internal combustion engines (such as piston, turbofan and turboprop) capable of superior fuel saving and lower emissions. Propfan architectures also fall in this space. Propulsion efficiency would not be less crucial as the aviation industry switches to SAF and/or hydrogen, two commodities that will remain exceedingly scarce and expensive at least until 2040-50.

Challenges: Developing, certifying, and industrialising new propulsion architectures and aircraft engines remains a complex and costly undertaking which demands significant financial resources, time, and expertise. 

Lightweight Materials and Structures

Lighter airframes enabled by innovative lightweight materials and structural optimisation, supported by tailored production techniques, can significantly reduce fuel consumption. Shedding just 100 kg from the empty weight of a commercial plane lowers fuel burn per flight by tens of kilos, equivalent to hundreds of tons during the airplane life cycle.

Challenges: Developing and certifying novel aircraft materials, structural designs, and production technology can take over a decade. Moreover, once obtained, certifications create rigidity and lock-in phenomena in the supply chain, further damaging innovation, flexibility and competition. Finally, implementing lightweight composite materials in airframe construction requires inspection and maintenance technologies capable of ensuring safety over time while keeping costs acceptable.

Sustainable Aviation Fuels - SAF

Drop-in Sustainable Aviation Fuels allow net-zero flight while still using present-day aircraft engines and infrastructure. SAF is presently blended with fossil fuel, but increasing percentages of SAF will enter the mix until reaching 100%. In the short term, supply will focus on biofuels, later switching to synfuels/e-fuels/PtX.

Challenges: SAF demand can only increase due to mandates and incentives. However, its production is still a tiny fraction of the fossil fuels consumed by the aviation industry. Moreover, SAF supply chain remains fragmented and uncertain. As a result, a massive scale-up is needed, requiring a parallel increase in the supply of green energy while the price per litre must come down dramatically.

Efficient Operations 

Practices and regulations governing air traffic are often the same as they were 30-70 years ago, offering ample opportunities for pursuing higher efficiencies. Flight altitude and routing play a major role in producing non-CO2 greenhouse phenomena related to contrails. Novel procedures and algorithms can lower emissions by promoting optimised aircraft routing, flight trajectories and airport operations. All of this can be achieved relatively quickly and without requiring the hefty investments associated with developing, certifying and deploying new hardware.

Challenges: Entrenched old ways of operating and fragmented governance of the air traffic are the main hurdles. At the same time, we still have much to learn about non-CO2 effects. 

Hydrogen Aviation

Hydrogen use in aviation is still in its infancy. However, hydrogen is a promising path toward true-zero flight due to its energy density and combustion, which releases no greenhouse gases. Hydrogen propulsion can be implemented through electric motors powered by fuel cells or turbine engines, such as today’s turbofans and turboprops.

Challenges: Hydrogen is usually stored on aircraft in liquid form at a cryogenic temperature of -253°, which demands innovative propulsion systems, onboard storage, aircraft design, and airport infrastructure. Further, the entire hydrogen supply chain will require massive upscaling in production and logistics, supported by a concurrent increase in the availability of renewable energy.

Passenger Experience

Passenger expectations about genuinely pleasant and human-centred travel go systematically unmet. Despite improvements in aircraft comfort and connectivity, airport transit, and luggage handling, most travellers still find air travel unpleasant due to long security lines, unpredictable delays, cramped seating, and crowded terminals. This persistent discomfort highlights a growing demand for innovative solutions that can enhance the journey from booking to baggage claim. 

Challenges: Improving passenger well-being implies creating a smoother and more responsive travel experience through enhancing airport design, streamlining digital services, and upgrading cabin comfort. Accessibility, time-saving solutions and personalised onboard services are increasingly important, as well as better customer service, biometric boarding, seamless intermodal transport and redesigned cabin interiors.

Get In Touch

If your project falls into the scope outlined here please get in touch and check if we can help your startup.

If you feel your topic is not specifically mentioned but falls into the general line of thought that we have outlined, still please do get in touch.

We are stage agnostic and encourage you to apply regardless of the funding stage that you’re at.

Value Chain Scope

We are interested in projects along the entire value chain. Example: A novel approach for welding a Hydrogen tank might qualify as well as a new airframe design. Submissions may focus on passenger and cargo aircraft as well as drones.

Commercial Scope

Any project that we support should have the long-term perspective for successful commercialization. We are however stage agnostic, so even if you are very early, we encourage you to apply.