The airline industry is currently recovering from the worst crisis, in its entire history. This new beginning marks the best point yet, for the industry to reshape towards more sustainable flying. Consequently, the company has built an MVP enabling pilots to do tactical operational decisions, which reduces fuel consumption significantly. Keyword is culture, and empowerment of frontline personal.
1. Business modeling
2. Market positioning
3. Funding
This SPRINGBOARD® will be held in English / Dette SPRINGBOARD® vil blive afholdt på engelsk
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The mission
”To change the status quo for aviation”
Trends
Aviation emissions will surge towards 2030 (source: McKinsey & Co.)
By mid-21st century, demand for flying could increase emissions by more than 300%. Compared to agriculture, industry and power generation, transport is not even close to the 1.5 degrees target pathway, as outlined in the Paris agreement.
The solution
The company’s MVP shows a fuel reduction of 14%.
The company is currently testing the solution with one customer. On a monthly basis, the customer has a savings potential equal to USD 90,000 and a reduction in CO2 emitted of 300 tons. – Results are gradually building towards full potential.
Customers
Established Danish airline company.
Competitors
Contrary to existing competitors, who focus primarily on fuel savings from a branding and monetary perspective, the company focus their solution on the whole lifecycle of fuel. Centered around the human factor and company cultural building, the company brings an authentic solution to the market, with a vision to unite a common front within the airlines industry, working together to solve a common problem.
Competitors include primarily https://ww2.jeppesen.com/, https://www.openairlines.com/, https://www.sita.aero/
The team
CEO – Danish, from Aalborg with 10 years professional experience from commercial aviation, captain, and pilot recruiter. Competitive glider pilot since the age of 15. Holds a graduate diploma in corporate finance, currently working in the financial sector. Responsible for the company’s market division, strategy and connection between real life aviation and the machine learning models.
CPO – Spanish, currently living in Copenhagen. 5 years’ experience from commercial aviation and coming with a background in app development and digital marketing. She oversees the product and tech development of the application.
ML / Backend – Danish, M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, Space Technology and Ph.D. in Machine Learning and Computer vision. 2 years of experience as postdoc and assistant professor at DTU currently working with the Danish military defense. Responsible for data architecture and building of the machine learning models.
Frontend – Indian/Danish lives in Greve- 2 years’ experience as front-end and react native development.
The company is backed by a strong Advisory Board consisting of international profiles with experience from Vestas, ABB, Tonsser, Boeing and others.
Finance
Shortly the company will initiate discussions with potential investors. Currently the company is not clear regarding the level of funding that is needed (Springboard panel will discuss this)
Status
The company is in the process of signing a contract with their customer, enabling full access to the pilot group, enabling the work towards the psychological factors as well as testing the version 1 of the app on a larger more broadly diversified group of people. Further, an a agreement has been made that the company is assisting the client in fuel price risk management for the financial year 2022.
Questions for the panel
Business modeling
What business and pricing model would make the most sense to use (freemium, premium, subscription)?
Market positioning
Existing competitors are financially heavily backed, and the company is thus eager to understand how they should face the competition, i.e. head-to-head vs. occupying a niche. Discussions to focus on positioning, communication, USPs, marketing tactics and strategy
Funding
The company is consider bootstrapping , i.e. keeping control of the ownership, progressing step-by-step vs. taking a major investor onboard in order to scale and take up competition immediately?
