Industrya invests in SupAirVision to digitalize the diagnosis of wind turbine blades

SupAirVision raises €1 million from Industrya to digitize the diagnosis of wind turbine blades

SupAirVision announces today that it has raised 1 million euros from Industrya, the investment fund initiated by the John Cockerill Group, with the support of Bpifrance and private partners. This fundraising is part of a strategy to accelerate the digitalisation of wind turbine blade diagnostics in Europe and worldwide.

Launched in 2017, Supairvision develops innovative solutions (drones, sensors and data) to meet the needs of the wind industry. France has more than 8,000 installed wind turbines (50% of which are within a 300 km radius of SupAirVision) and represents the 4th largest market in Europe, behind Germany No. 1 with 30,000 wind turbines. In a market estimated at more than 100,000 wind turbines in Europe, most of which are in their second decade of operation, the need for maintenance and diagnostics is real. Wind turbines are also becoming more powerful, taller and equipped with longer blades.

The evolution of regulations – the new ICPE (Installations Classées Protection de l’Environnement) has required blade inspections every six months since 2020 in France – has also quadrupled the need for inspections, whereas the practice was often to inspect the blades every two years.

“We are arriving at a key moment in the market: technology is becoming essential to take over from the human resources assigned to blade maintenance, explains Sébastien Arnould, CEO and founder of SupAirVision. The drone and its associated image processing optimise the monitoring of blades and will become indispensable for implementing effective predictive maintenance, whether for onshore or offshore wind turbines.”

The volumes of data to be collected and processed are becoming gigantic. Automating these steps makes fault detection more reliable and optimises the management of the wind farms.

“We have detected in SupAirVision a real capacity to respond to market demand, by developing the most relevant products to provide the best technical and operational solution, appreciates Thibaud Le Séguillon, CEO of Industrya. Moreover, through its onshore and offshore wind turbine maintenance activities in France, Belgium, Spain, Brazil and Morocco, the John Cockerill Group will undoubtedly have a role to play in the acceleration of SupAirVision. We are therefore delighted to invest in SupAirVision and to support its growth.”

“This round of financing allows us to project ourselves optimistically onto the European market, in order to impose our offer of blade diagnostic solutions, from automatic drones to SaaS blade management and lightning path diagnostics, continues Sébastien Arnould. The entry of a leading partner such as Industrya offers us a fantastic opportunity to accelerate our growth in buoyant markets while benefiting from a large network depth.”

The funds raised will be used to develop Volta, the first drone-based lightning path diagnostic system, and to deploy it on the German and Northern European markets (onshore and offshore).

Based at the Technopole de l’Aube (Troyes), SupAirVision is supported by the Grand Est Region, Bpifrance, and Scal’E-nov, the startup accelerator of the Grand Est region, where it joined Promo#2 in 2020.

About SupAirVision

‍Expert in wind turbine blade diagnostics, SupAirVision contributes to the performance of wind farms by innovating on the drone, sensors and data. Founded in 2017 by Sébastien Arnould, SupAirVision has developed a range of relevant products for the wind energy industry: Sherlock (photo inspection of blades), Volta (blade lightning path diagnostics), Clarity (thermography), VisionAir (data management cloud), DroneSpray (aerial painting by drone).