Petronas Ventures backs Malaysian drone player

Petronas Ventures was set up in 2019 with a view to developing the local start-up ecosystem as well as advancing the parent company’s more specific business aims. This includes both direct investments and LP commitments to VC firms such as 500 Global and Gobi Partners. There is a US-based subsidiary for coverage of North America and Europe.

Aerodyne touts itself as a global leader in drone services, including related data and business transformation capacities, especially in the industrials space. The company has managed more than 560,000 infrastructure assets with some 458,000 flight operations and more than 380,000 kilometres of power infrastructure across 35 countries since its inception in 2014.

There has been a significant focus on oil and gas infrastructure, offering services like cloud-based support for powerlines, offshore and onshore wind turbines, and solar panel inspections. Recent oil sector activity includes a “drone-as-a-service” partnership with Norwegian counterpart Astralution.

In January, Aerodyne made an investment of undisclosed size in Malaysian data analytics player Synapse with a view to building out capabilities around predictive artificial intelligence for the energy, infrastructure, and agriculture sectors. CEO Kamarul Muhamed described it as the “first of many future M&As” focused on data.

Previous investment in Aerodyne includes a USD 30m round in 2020 featuring KWAP, Astarc Ventures, Leave A Nest Capital, and North Summit Capital. In 2019, 500 Global, Gobi Partners, InterVest, Intres Capital, Kejora Capital, and VentureTech also provided USD 30m.

Japan’s Real Tech Fund, Drone Fund, and drone maker Kobashi Holdings are among the company's other investors.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Industrials
• Technology
• Expansion
• Malaysia
• KWAP
• energy
• Logistics
• artificial intelligence