European Investment Bank backs Airborne International

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the lending arm of the European Union, confirmed 16 million euros ($17.4 million) of new financing to support research and development investment by Airborne International. The new financing will be used to further develop automated and digital manufacturing of composites and development of advanced products for new space and big science applications.

Airborne is a Dutch company, headquartered in The Hague, specializing in the development and production of advanced composite products as well as automated manufacturing systems for their production.

Arno van Mourik, CEO of Airborne, says, “EIB backing for Airborne’s investment program enables us to accelerate development and commercialization of new composite automation, enabling much lower cost, providing much more flexibility, and reducing material waste. This will allow our customers to develop and manufacture advanced composite products to be more sustainable, reduce fuel consumption, and provide higher performance”.

The financing will strengthen innovation of new composites to reduce energy use and create 114 highly skilled jobs.

“The European Investment Bank is committed to supporting innovation investment and the new partnership with Airborne demonstrates how research and development can transform daily life and industry through digitalization and automation of production,” said Kris Peeters, European Investment Bank Vice President.

Micky Adriaansens, Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy of The Netherlands, adds, “Additional financial investment is a key factor for Airborne to take the next steps in their development of automated and digital production systems for advanced composite production systems.”

The complex materials developed by Airborne are used to make aircraft, satellites, and rockets lighter, stronger, and safer.

Airborne is involved in several projects to develop new, lightweight structures for future electric mobility. With a Dutch consortium involving GKN, Toray, Collins, and others, new concepts for thermoplastic composite structures are being developed, focused on the emerging Advanced Air Mobility market, with Airborne focusing on digital and automated technologies to manufacture tailored blank laminates. With Venturi Aviation, Airborne has setup a partnership to work on lightweight composite structures for the Echelon 01, a battery electric regional airliner with a 44-seat capacity and 500km range. Airborne also is working on several projects around lightweight composite battery systems for aerospace and automotive to go into production in 2022.

In another consortium, led by Toray Advanced Composites, Airborne helps developing the technologies for future H2 storage tanks, for long-range airplanes.

These and other projects aim to make mobility more sustainable, by light weighting and increasing performance of the vehicles to enlarge the range, and to reduce the waste during manufacturing.