AAM Inspection Solution Development ‘WEFLO’ Attracts Pre-Series A Investment With Automation Keywords
Promote domestic and international partnerships with the keyword of automated UAM inspection.
WEFLO (CEO Kim Eui-jung), which develops advanced air mobility (AAM) inspection automation solutions, announced that it has attracted 3 billion won worth of pre-series A investment. The investment involved a number of new investors, including Kiwoom Investment Asset Management, Industrial Bank of Korea, GS Ventures, and the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund.
Through ‘verti-Pit’ WEFLO automatically checks the exterior and interior of the aircraft at the time of takeoff and landing of aircraft such as drones, preventing accidents and enabling efficient flight. It is a solution that reduces cost and time and minimizes errors compared to the existing visual maintenance method. It has its own contactless sensors, artificial intelligence, and big data-based automatic inspection solutions, and is currently being used by domestic and foreign companies and local governments such as Skyports, Doosan Digital Innovation, Marine Drone Technology, Pablo Air, Seongnam City, Yeosu City, Jeju City, and Seosan City.
In the past, all innovative means of transportation, including AAM, had the task of providing ‘safety’. Air mobility, which is estimated to grow five times from $8.93 billion in 2022 to $45.12 billion in 2030, is also expected to be required to secure “safety,” and the importance of maintenance, repair, and operation (MRO, Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul) will also be strengthened. In this situation, WEFLO intends to preempt the future air mobility market through verti-Pit, which guarantees the safety and accuracy of air transportation. In the future, it will expand its stride to the ground mobility inspection and maintenance market such as electric vehicles and electric bicycles.
Yoon Hyung-joon, a judge at GS Ventures, a company-led venture capital, said, “WEFLO is a start-up with technology that closely inspects the driving part of the drone in seconds before flying, and it was impressive that it can solve the difficulties of operators who provide drone services such as delivery and on-site inspection and promote the growth of the drone industry as a whole. It is a team of experts in the aerospace and information and communication fields, and it is expected that it can expand to AAM and electric vehicle industries other than drones based on sensor design technology and enter the global market where drone services are activated.”
Through this investment, we have laid the foundation for strengthening our competitiveness in the future air mobility market at home and abroad, said Kim Eui-jung, CEO of WEFLO. “We will implement new business models with various partners and open a new chapter in future air mobility that guarantees convenience and safety.”
WEFLO was founded in 2022 to make human time valuable with innovation in movement through automated safety inspection solutions. It consists of aerospace experts, led by Kim Eui-jung, a PhD in engineering at KAIST and former Hanwha System. In 2022, it attracted seed investment from Kakao Ventures, Lotte Ventures, and Base Investment.