The investment will consolidate the BladeInsight value proposition to deliver optimization of operation and maintenance (O&M) of wind energy infrastructure through automation and digitalization, empowering owners to deliver higher output and optimise their yields from investment, driving down the cost of wind energy. It will reinforce the global reach of BladeInsight technology, enabling significant growth of the company. This strategic partnership with SES is the latest milestone for BladeInsight in its most successful year since its founding in 2015, as recognised by the ScaleUp Portugal Report 2020. With 15 GW of wind energy already inspected with its technology,  the company now reasserts its commitment to boosting the competitiveness of renewables, contributing to the energy transition through optimization of O&M of wind turbine blades. BladeInsight provides a suite of robotics and data analytics solutions on a cloud-based platform, delivering data-driven decision-making for better efficiency and a longer lifetime of assets.

BladeInsight was founded in 2015 with an idea: to develop a disruptive technological solution to simplify the inspection of wind turbine blades with autonomous drones, making the operation safer, cheaper and with higher quality. ​Since entering the market in 2017, BladeInsight technology has been used in 20,000 inspections with more than 4,000 hours of autonomous flight. Currently, in addition to the blade inspection solution, BladeInsight offers complementary software and data analytics tools that help to optimize O&M management on a cloud platform, incorporating machine learning.

Throughout its journey since ideation, BladeInsight, formerly known as Pro-Drone, was widely acknowledged in the start-up ecosystem nationally and internationally, with several awards and, in 2019, the attribution of an EU Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator project (SME Instrument Phase 2 – Innovation).

BladeInsight has been part of the EIT InnoEnergy ecosystem since 2014. We have been part of the company’s journey, helping it grow and expand to new markets. Blade Insight has benefited from our services including access to our ecosystem, sales support, access to talent and exclusive industry events.