Enschede-based Clear Flight Solutions has raised €2.6 million from AERIUM Analytics and the Cottonwood Euro Technology Fund. This first close of a targeted Series B investment of €6 million, will allow Clear Flight Solutions to further strengthen its purpose to save, preserve and protect both nature and people by revolutionizing bird control through its unique technology and services. With the Robird™ as its backbone, Clear Flight Solutions’ bird control operations continue to be highly efficient and offer great effectiveness to airports, oil & gas, dredging and agriculture worldwide.
The majority of the fresh capital will go towards the North American expansion as well as to support its continued operations in the US and Canada. Additionally, Clear Flight Solutions plans to use another sizable portion for the Robird 3.0, a fully autonomous version of the robotic bird of prey that will be smarter, more effective and more efficient. The Dutch startup was founded in 2012.
This investment follows a successful year for Clear Flight Solutions, as the company has acomplished the first ever full integration of drone flights within daily operations at major international airports together with Canadian partner AERIUM Analytics. At Edmonton International Airport in Canada and another, undisclosed, European airport the Robird™ has currently made over 500 flights on airside within a three-month period. Well over 15.000 birds have recently been chased away from active runways using Robirds™ and additional bird control solutions, dramatically reducing the risk of bird strike incidents at these airports. Furthermore, the company is working on protecting birds in the Oil Sands region of Canada, and over the last two years has run an extensive bird control operation on a major offshore project of Van Oord, one of the world’s largest dredging companies.
Nico Nijenhuis, CEO of Clear Flight Solutions, stated: “This investment comes at a perfect time”,As a company we have reached major milestones this year. Our revenue is rapidly growing and has well surpassed the €1 million threshold this year. This next round of investments shows trust and offers us the opportunity to continue our expansion and the ambition of making airports safer, and protecting nature.”
