On July 20, Arlington, VA-based Boeing announced that it has committed a $50 million investment in AEI HorizonX, a partnership the company established with private equity firm AE Industrial Partners to invest in transformative aerospace technologies. The new funding will anchor AEI HorizonX’s second venture fund (Fund II), which plans to raise $250 million to support promising start-ups in future mobility, space, sustainability, digital enterprise applications, networks and security.
“The future of aerospace is digital, sustainable and autonomous,” said Marc Allen, Boeing’s chief strategy officer. “This new Fund II builds on the foundation we have with Fund I and positions us to significantly expand our strategic access to disruptive technologies critical to shaping and realizing that future.”
Since its inception in 2021, the AEI HorizonX portfolio has achieved five IPOs (initial public offerings) and exits. The venture capital group’s current portfolio features 51 global investments, including companies that are driving innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning, developing solutions to reduce aerospace’s climate impact, and optimizing data insights across factories, products and services. The diverse portfolio features startups from across the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia.
Aside from providing capital, AEI HorizonX has helped its portfolio companies accelerate their progress by connecting them with Boeing’s broad capabilities and global market reach. AEI HorizonX also partners with Boeing on the company’s global accelerator – Aerospace Xelerated – a program that supports seed-stage innovation across the aerospace industry.
“The power of the AEI HorizonX venture platform is the ability to bring the joint capabilities from Boeing and the extended AE Industrial team to make quality investment decisions while bringing a differentiated value-add to drive upside to startups across their lifecycle,” said Brian Schettler, partner at AE Industrial and head of AEI HorizonX. “As we did with Fund I, by expanding into Fund II, we’re able to admit additional limited partners from around the world into our exclusive partnership with Boeing, bringing expanded capital to advance these new technologies through their early development.”
“The AEI HorizonX platform has provided a key enabler for Boeing to partner with early-stage companies and accelerate the development and adoption of their technology,” said Greg Hyslop, chief engineer at Boeing. “It’s all about the technology transitions – how we can partner with entrepreneurs to turn great ideas into deployed solutions across our products and services to better support our customers.”
Source: Boeing
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