Airbus BizLab's firms ink contracts with three Indian aviation startups, conclude third leg of acceleration programme

Bengaluru: Airbus BizLab, a global aerospace accelerator’s subsidiaries, Navblue and Aerial signed contracts with three Indian startups in its Season 3 start-up acceleration programme Take Off 2018 in a bid to come up with innovations in aeronautical data services, flight operations, and imagery services. Three startups from Bengaluru – Eflight, Chennai – Stelae Technologies, and Navi Mumbai-based Airpix Devices were selected from a slew of startups. As part of the Take Off programme, Airbus BizLab will sponsor two travels to Europe for the start-ups in a period of six months as well as fund up to 50,000 euros for the demonstration of proof of concept. The accelerator seeks to bolster the government’s ‘Make in India’ and ‘Startup India’ initiatives, said Bruno Gutierres, Global Head, Airbus Bizlab. The latest partnerships are in addition to those that Airbus signed with Bengaluru based start-ups – Neewee and EFLIGHT in February 2018. [caption id=“attachment_4233129” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “For the last couple of years, I have been convinced with the potential and the quality of entrepreneurs in India. I am pleased to see that all these partnerships between Airbus and Indian startups are proving me right,” Gutierres said, who was an entrepreneur himself before joining Airbus. “Navblue believes in India’s potential for multiple reasons. One is India’s proven capacity for innovation within the IT sector, which is demonstrated perfectly by the start-ups present at the Airbus’ BizLab, with whom we work very closely. Another is the potential of the aerospace industry; India has the world’s fastest-growing domesticairline market,” said Fabrice Villaumé, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Navblue. The company also sees the potential of the aerospace industry given the fact that India has the world’s fastest-growing domestic airline market.

“These back to back successes coming from India is motivating more teams from Airbus to reach out to us with their challenges and they hope to identify technologies from India and Asia to solve their problems. Apart from Airbus teams, some of our customers and partners have also expressed interest to partner with the BizLab and we hope to support them through our Corporate Innovation vertical,” said Siddharth Balachandran, Airbus BizLab Leader – India.

These back to back successes coming from India is motivating more teams from Airbus to reach out to us with their challenges and they hope to identify technologies from India and Asia to solve their problems. Apart from Airbus teams, some of our customers and partners have also expressed interest to partner with the BizLab and we hope to support them through our Corporate Innovation vertical, Gutierres said.

Through its six-month “acceleration programme” for start-ups and internal projects, Airbus Bizlab gives access to a large number of coaches, experts and mentors in various domains that help start-ups and internal projects speed-up the transformation of their ideas into valuable businesses, he added.