Tekever raises €20M for global expansion.

Tekever,  leading drone-based maritime surveillance provider in Europe, announced that it has raised 20 million Euros to accelerate its global expansion. The round was led by Ventura Capital, a global growth fund specializing in pre-IPO technology leaders, and joined by financial investors including Iberis Capital, and strategic investors including leading Maritime Industry and Shipping OEMs. The Growth Stage acted as Placement Agent for this funding round.

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Tekever AR5 showcased at DSEI 2021 (Picture source: Army Recognition)

“Tekever combines advanced Robotics, Sensing and Artificial Intelligence to offer revolutionary drone-based Intelligence-as-a-Service. Unlike traditional aerospace companies, we have a vertically integrated approach to our products, and full control over every aspect of the value chain, including aeronautical design, composite structures manufacturing, electronics design and production, and software development including deep capability in data science. This ability allows us to create products that are radically different, to bring them to market in record time, and to rapidly evolve them to stay ahead of the curve. In addition, Tekever's team of drone operators and data analysts provide customers with an end-to-end service, allowing them to focus solely on information, while relying on Tekever to handle the complexity of day-to-day operations”, explains Ricardo Mendes, Tekever CEO.

The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the United Kingdom’s Home Office were among the first governments, major agencies and global companies to adopt Tekever's revolutionary drone-based intelligence service to gather real time data across ultra-wide areas and create the intelligence needed to predict and act timely and efficiently to avoid major threats to life, the environment and the economy in maritime context, like Piracy, Drugs and Human Trafficking, Migrant Smuggling, Pollution, Illegal Fishing, and threats to Infrastructure Security.

An unconventional drone company

Tekever builds multiple types of drones, capable of flying up to 20 hours continuously while carrying a vast amount of sensors, including cameras, radars or cellphone detectors. The drones are built around an AI-centric platform that combines Edge AI, satellite communications and cloud computing to provide customers with real time information and advanced analytics over simple to use and globally accessible web and mobile interfaces.

“95% of humans live in less than 5% of the Earth’s surface. To thrive as a species, we need to be able to safely discover, know and protect our entire planet, harnessing and using its resources in a responsible way. Our purpose is to offer our customers a service that is simple, effective and hides away the tremendous technical and operational complexity involved in what we’re doing. We’ve developed the entire technology stack and built a scalable industrial capability to create an end-to-end service that just redefines what’s possible in Maritime Surveillance. We’re leading in Europe, and we’re on our way to become the global leaders.” adds Mendes.

“Tekever is a very unconventional UAS company and a market leader with outclass technology, thousands of hours of operational experience, a seasoned leadership team and a phenomenal and profitable business vision in a fast-growing market”, explains Mo El Husseiny, Managing Partner at Ventura Capital. “These attributes have made Tekever a flagship investment for Ventura, aligned to our portfolio of disruptors in technology”.

“Tekever is one of the hottest European Deeptech scaleups, and we’re very proud to continue working with the team and helping them disrupt the global market” adds Diogo Chalbert Santos, Partner at Iberis Capital. “It’s amazing what TEKEVER has already achieved as a bootstrapped business and I’d say not even the sky is a limit with this round”

Following the commercial launch of its services in 2018, TEKEVER’s revenue and profits have been growing consistently, and the company expects a continued CAGR of at least 60% in the next 3 years. The investment round will contribute to accelerate global expansion and R&D investment, as Tekever expects to increase its workforce by 100 during 2022 across multiple geographies to ramp up product development and manufacturing capability and make its revolutionary intelligence-as-a-service available to customers in new geographies.