Participated · Series B · Mar 2022

Skyports is a London-based company that designs, builds and operates take-off and landing infrastructure for air taxis and operates electric drones. It partners with eVTOL vehicle manufacturers to enable cargo and passenger flight operations in urban and suburban environments. The company is led by CEO Duncan Walker and runs two business lines: Skyports Infrastructure and Skyports Drone Services. Skyports raised £88.6M in a Series C to support developments across both businesses. Skyports Infrastructure will use the funding to build vertiports, supporting a tripartite agreement with Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority and Joby Aviation ahead of air taxi launches in Dubai by 2026 and other markets. Skyports Drone Services will expand recently launched offerings including offshore energy asset deliveries, medical deliveries, linear asset inspections and water quality monitoring. Skyports is a London-based provider of advanced air mobility infrastructure and drone services that builds and operates take-off and landing infrastructure for eVTOL passenger and cargo vehicles. The company partners with vehicle manufacturers to enable safe, sustainable, and efficient flight operations in urban and suburban environments. Skyports also runs drone services operations and has active operations across the U.K., Europe, and Asia. The firm raised new capital to consolidate its position in AAM infrastructure and drone operations markets. Management said the funding will enable scaling of drone services in new and existing markets and help build the air taxi ecosystem alongside vehicle partners. The company emphasizes technology development, regulatory engagement, and operational experience while pursuing emissions reductions by using drones for a range of customers. Skyports is a London-based urban air mobility (UAM) infrastructure provider that secures, designs, builds, owns and operates vertiports and runs end-to-end cargo drone delivery services. It works with electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) passenger and cargo vehicle manufacturers to enable safe and efficient flight operations in urban and suburban environments. The company develops and operates cargo drone deliveries across the medical, e-commerce and logistics sectors and has projects in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa. Skyports raised an extension to its Series A that now totals £6m. It plans to use the funds for site acquisition for passenger and cargo vertiports in cities including Singapore and Los Angeles and to expand its team to fully commercialize its urban and rural drone delivery services. The company is led by CEO Duncan Walker. Led by CEO Duncan Walker, Skyports builds and operates critical infrastructure for urban air mobility and manages end-to-end drone deliveries. The company works with eVTOL passenger and cargo vehicle manufacturers to secure, design, build, own and operate vertiports for safe, efficient flight operations. Skyports develops, implements and operates cargo drone deliveries for medical, e‑commerce and logistics sectors, addressing inefficiencies in traditional transport. It has projects operating across Europe, North America, Asia and Africa. The company intends to use new funds to acquire passenger and cargo vertiport sites worldwide and to further develop its drone delivery business. Skyports also plans to expand its team to pursue full commercialisation of its delivery services.

Participated · Series B · Jan 2022

InstaDeep develops reinforcement-learning and advanced machine learning platforms to solve complex optimization problems for enterprises, from container routing to train scheduling and drug design. The company is headquartered in London with offices in Paris, Tunis, Lagos, Dubai and Cape Town and was founded in 2014. InstaDeep has over 170 employees, more than 130 of whom work in AI research, engineering, ML and DevOps, with roughly half the team based in African offices. Its product work includes a moonshot railway-scheduling project with Deutsche Bahn and an early warning system that detected high-risk SARS-CoV-2 variants ahead of WHO designations. InstaDeep has collaborated closely with BioNTech, Google (including DeepMind and Google Research) and others on applied AI projects. With the new funding the company plans to accelerate product launches across biotech, logistics, transportation and electronics, advance its computing infrastructure, expand into the U.S. and hire more talent. InstaDeep builds an AI-based enterprise decision-making platform that leverages deep reinforcement learning, machine learning, and predictive analytics to optimize decisions and improve ROI across manufacturing, logistics, mobility, and energy. The company says its platform can tackle challenging optimisation and automation problems in dynamic, complex environments and is already providing measurable value to clients. InstaDeep was founded in Tunisia in 2014 and is now London-based; it was one of the first African-founded AI firms to publish original research at NeurIPS in 2018. The startup has seen steady growth and has developed the platform through its own cutting-edge research. With its latest funding and a strategic partnership with AfricInvest, InstaDeep aims to expand advanced AI opportunities and talent development in Africa and beyond. Management highlights plans to democratise machine learning in Africa and leverage AfricInvest’s operational expertise to accelerate R&D and talent programs.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2019

Teralytics builds a platform that provides advanced mobility analytics powered by telecom network data, using data science and proprietary machine learning algorithms. The company offers mobility data products for infrastructure developers, transport planners and shared mobility services across more than 10 countries. Led by CEO Alastair MacLeod, Teralytics has offices in Zurich, New York and Singapore. In June 2019 the company raised $17.5M in a funding round. It plans to use the funds to expand its geographic presence and become a global marketplace for mobility insights. Teralytics aims to cover the journeys of more than one billion people as it scales.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2018

Coord is a mobility data startup that spun out of Alphabet-owned Sidewalk Labs. The company offers a suite of transportation-focused APIs, including a Tolls API to calculate toll costs, a Curbs API to surface parking and passenger-loading rules and meter prices, a Routing API that uses real-time information for multi-modal routing, and a Shared Vehicle API for bike- and scooter-share availability, pricing and locations. Customers include Zipcar, Mozio and Google Maps. Coord says it will use the new funding to continue enhancing its APIs and expand geographic coverage. CEO and co-founder Stephen Smyth has described the company’s goal as building a bridge between the private and public sectors and driving standardization of transportation-related data across cities.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2018

Trillium Secure provides cybersecurity protection and secure data management solutions for vehicles and fleets. Its subscription service uses multi-layered cybersecurity technology to protect connected and autonomous vehicles and fleets against cyber-attacks. The company also offers an authenticated operational and threat management data solution that preserves privacy, confidentiality and anonymity of data at rest and in motion. Trillium serves fleet operators, rideshare services, vehicular OEMs, aerospace and defense organizations, insurance companies, mobile carriers and telematics integrators. The company operates design centers and fleet security operation sites in Sunnyvale, Ann Arbor, Ho Chi Minh City and Tokyo, and plans to open a European design center in the third quarter. It has proprietary patented and patent-pending solutions and is led by President and CEO David Uze. Trillium recently raised $11M in Series A2 funding, bringing total funding to $15M, which it will use to expand product engineering, sales and marketing, and customer support.