Boeing, AE Industrial Partners to launch second venture fund

A mannequin of a Boeing 777X is seen on the Farnborough Worldwide Airshow, in Farnborough, Britain, July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Matthew Childs

FARNBOROUGH, England, July 20 (Reuters) – Boeing Co (BA.N) mentioned on Wednesday it had agreed to take a position $50 million in AEI HorizonX, increasing a partnership established with personal fairness agency AE Industrial Companions to spend money on aerospace know-how startups.

The brand new funding will anchor AEI HorizonX’s second enterprise fund (Fund II), which plans to boost $250 million “to assist promising start-ups in future mobility, house, sustainability, digital enterprise functions, networks and safety.”

Boeing, which like many aerospace firms had traditionally used in-house enterprise funds to tightly management know-how improvement, launched HorizonX in 2017 as a enterprise capital arm to spend money on early-stage firms.

Final yr, Boeing spun it off to forge a broader exterior funding fund managed by AE Industrial Companions, an aerospace-specialist personal fairness agency with $5 billion below administration. learn extra

Boeing mentioned in a press launch that some AEI HorizonX portfolio firms have made progress in zero-carbon plane propulsion methods; passenger leisure; and security and cyber safety for industrial and protection plane.

Marc Allen, Boeing’s chief technique officer, informed Reuters the brand new fund would spend money on applied sciences like mobility, sustainability, house and communications: “every little thing that goes into the brand new industrial know-how to assist aerospace”.

Requested whether or not traders remained supportive of aerospace after share costs sank when journey demand tanked through the pandemic, Allen mentioned, “The constructive disruption that know-how is taking part in throughout the commercial panorama is evident.”

He added: “You may’t do higher than to purchase in when a market is on the backside. In fact, after COVID, aerospace is simply watching an ideal massive development curve in entrance of it.”

Since 2021, the AEI HorizonX portfolio has had 5 preliminary public choices and exits. Its portfolio options 51 international investments in areas together with AI and machine-learning.

Among the many authentic HorizonX’s investments was a $20 million stake in Richard Branson’s suborbital tourism enterprise Virgin Galactic (SPCE.N), which flew the billionaire British businessman to the sting of house final yr.

Each Boeing and Airbus forecast robust underlying airplane demand, whereas new threats are driving up defence demand. However provide chain issues persist.

Aerospace provide chains “should get extra environment friendly, extra digital, extra linked,” Allen mentioned in an interview.

Reporting by David Shepardson and Tim Hepher; Modifying by David Gregorio

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