AeroCloud has raised $12.6 million in Series A funding led by US fund Stage 2 Capital.
I2BF Global Ventures, Triple Point Ventures, Praetura Ventures and Starburst Ventures also joined the Series A round with existing investors Playfair Capital and Haatch. The Praetura commitment to the round was supported with additional investment through the Regional Angel Programme by British Business Investments. AeroCloud has now raised $16m in total, and this new round of investment will support a doubling down on the airport management software revolution.
Founded by former professional racing driver George Richardson (CEO) and airport operations innovator Ian Forde-Smith (CTO), AeroCloud uses technology to solve the complex challenges airports face daily. Airports are fast-moving domains, requiring smooth coordination of multiple factors in a high-pressure environment, from security to passengers and airlines. A lack of coordination between these different factors can affect an airport’s performance – in some instances, airports operate at only around 66% capacity. Even before the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, which caused escalating passenger processing times and labour shortages, these issues were difficult to manage, particularly for small and medium-sized airports that don’t have the budgets and capacities that their larger peers do. As travel returns to pre-pandemic levels, airports have struggled to adjust to heightened demand, affecting operations worldwide.
AeroCloud uses leading-edge technologies such as AI and machine learning combined with hardware to transform airport operations, drive stakeholder communication, and increase airport efficiency and operating margins. The platform enables everything from faster passenger processing times to improved self-service check-in and bag drop and facilitates increased communication between stakeholders to deal with real-time fluctuations in processes to ensure that airports work better and communicate with their customers.
Using the Cloud to improve efficiency
AeroCloud is currently focused on small to medium-sized airports often dependent on Excel spreadsheets or inflexible, unwieldy, expensive legacy software to run their operations. By comparison, its modular, scalable management platform centralises all the siloed data across an airport into one platform that can be accessed by all stakeholders, providing an overview of everything taking place. The platform uses AI to highlight inefficiencies and improve operations, from flight management to passenger predictions and gate management. An airport can run much more efficiently in only two weeks, helping decrease operational costs and increase margins. These efficiency gains have a knock-on effect – enabling airports to employ more people, add more airlines and positively impact the local economy.
AeroCloud’s cloud-native platform enables unlimited licenses per customer so an airport’s entire stakeholder base can access the platform at no extra cost. This also means AeroCloud can be used on any device wherever an airport’s team is based, whether onsite or remote, ensuring the platform is more secure than legacy systems, often run on centrally-located stack servers.
The trusted partner for scaling airports
This dedication to providing the tools to help airports make data-driven decisions and be more productive has seen AeroCloud partner with 42 customers in less than three years, ranging from Manchester Airport and Eindhoven Airport in the UK and Europe to Tampa International Airport and John Wayne in the US. Collectively, its software processes more than 150+ million passengers annually.
One customer, Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in Florida, US, started using the tool to automate gate allocation and passenger prediction analytics. This helped the airport to take on new airlines and seamlessly grow its annual passenger figures from 900,000 in 2019 to over 3.4 million in 2022 and become the US’s fastest-growing airport. The platform can even help airports reduce their carbon footprint by rationalising plane taxiing, resulting in less fuel used by airlines and ground crews.
The new Series A funding will enable AeroCloud to scale up, with plans to double the team of 40 by the end of the year across its HQ in Macclesfield, North West England, and its offices in London and Florida. This will help it reach its target of over 100 customers in 2023, which will require growing its presence in North America and Europe and delivering innovative new product launches based on machine learning, AI and self-service.
George Richardson, co-founder and CEO at AeroCloud, said:
“The airport industry has had a difficult few years, which has only increased the need for a scalable, intelligent platform like AeroCloud. Before we launched AeroCloud, airports were forced to use legacy technology that was difficult to scale and barely fit for purpose. Now, it takes only 24 hours for an airport to onboard onto our platform and within two weeks, it’s already driving efficiency and operation gains. AeroCloud’s technology is so easy to use that it supports millions of operational decisions daily and doesn’t require anyone to be on-site.
Raising Series A capital in this market has been tough, but I am delighted with the results owing to our strong growth and impressive team. It’s been an incredible few years building this business, and I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds, which I am sure will be very exciting for airports globally and our investors.”
Liz Christo, Partner at Stage 2 Capital, said:
“In only a short time, AeroCloud has become the definitive operating software for small to medium-sized airports. Each module is so critical to running an airport’s operations that good enough is not an option; it has to be perfect. George and Ian have built an impressive team dedicated to delivering an amazing customer experience, and we can see that it’s working with airports across North America and Europe, signing multi-year contracts and putting their confidence in AeroCloud. I’m excited to work with the team to accelerate their growth in the US and support George and Ian as they build a generational software company.”
Founded in 2019, Macclesfield, UK-based AeroCloud uses AI and machine learning to transform airport operations and passenger processing solutions via the cloud. Its intelligent management platform with real-time analytics enables small to medium-sized airports to plan, monitor, and improve operations and passenger experience. AeroCloud is the only 100% cloud-native solution taking on a $20 billion legacy market, and this new Series A funding will help it accelerate expansion plans and displace lethargic incumbents.
