Sabic invests in Airborne for automated/digitised composites production

Materials company Sabic, via its corporate venturing arm, has invested growth capital in composites specialist Airborne International, located in The Hague, Netherlands.

With this investment, Sabic joins a growth financing round by existing shareholders including Pangaea Ventures Fund III, HPE PRO Institutional Fund, Participatiemaatschappii Innovation Quarter and Innovatiefonds Brabant. The financing round will contribute to Airborne’s full automation and digitisation of composite manufacturing of goods that require less weight and higher strength from an array of industries.

In many markets like Aerospace, Automotive, Oil & Gas, Consumer Electronics and Sporting Goods, lightweight and durability are key industry drivers. Continuous fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composite materials offer the potential to address these needs.

Sabic’s composite thermoplastic solutions coupled with Airborne’s know-how offers the unique opportunity to realise the mass production of lighter and stronger applications in a more cost effective way.

Airborne specialises in advanced composite products for aerospace and marine sectors and said to be on a growth path to become the leading platform in composite automated manufacturing technologies. With the new investment, Airborne will implement the digital infrastructure that will serve as a backbone for thermoplastic composite automation technologies.

In 2015, Sabic invested in technology for the production of high performance unidirectional UDMAX tapes resulting in the formation of FRT. Sabic says its investment in Airborne will help enable the development of the next step in the value chain, with enhanced yields, cycle times and system cost and is considered as a critical step towards broader use of continuous fibre-reinforced composites in the market.

Arno van Mourik, Founder/CEO of Airborne said, “A radical increase of the level of automation and digitalisation as well as the availability of information throughout the supply chain will be a crucial success factor in the composites industry. Combined with the integration of information from material to product, this is the core of Airborne’s strategy. Attracting a preferred advanced chemicals supplier to invest in Airborne is a great confirmation of our strategy.”

(PRA)