Airbus Ventures, the venture capital arm of the European aircraft maker, is planning to set up an independent investment vehicle in India to put money in aerospace and non-aerospace startups, according to a Times of India report.
“The financing vehicle should be ready by next year,” Francois Auque, chairman of the fund’s general partner entity, told the newspaper. Airbus’ VC arm, which has a corpus of $150 million, invests in seed and first round of investment and has put money in 13 startups across North America, Europe, Israel and Japan.
The company is yet to finalise the size of the India fund, however, Airbus Ventures will invest in Indian companies by associating with Airbus Bizlab, the aerospace business accelerator that has a presence in Bengaluru, apart from in Toulouse in France and Hamburg in Germany.
According to the report, Airbus Ventures always co-invests with other companies, with cheque sizes ranging from 750,000 euros for a seed round to about 3 million euros for Series A for about 10 per cent stake. The funding can go up to 5 million euros for a single company; any higher investment requires the nod of the parent body.