Get 40% Off
🤯 This Tech Portfolio is up 29% YTD! Join Now to Get April’s Top PicksGet The Picks – Just 99 USD

Airbus Group starts $150 million venture fund, Silicon Valley base

Published 05/29/2015, 03:22 PM
Updated 05/29/2015, 03:23 PM
© Reuters. People are silhouetted past a logo of the Airbus Group during the Airbus annual news conference in Colomiers

© Reuters. People are silhouetted past a logo of the Airbus Group during the Airbus annual news conference in Colomiers

By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus Group (PARIS:AIR) announced the creation of a $150 million venture capital fund and said it had hired a Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) executive to run a new center in Silicon Valley as it seeks to wave a digital wand over its heavy-manufacturing culture.

The planemaker said on Friday that Airbus Group Ventures would invest in "disruptive and innovative" technologies worldwide. It will be headed by Tim Dombrowski, 54, formerly a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The European group also said it had recruited Google executive and former U.S. aeronautics researcher Paul Eremenko, 35, to run an innovation center in Silicon Valley.

Airbus Group Chief Executive Tom Enders announced the center's creation on Wednesday, saying it would provide promising avenues for technology it might otherwise miss.

It is the latest evidence of efforts by planemakers to woo technologists as potential partners and comes weeks after Enders took the company's top management team to California to see what lessons could be learned from the digital revolution.

Enders was quoted as saying after a previous visit to Silicon Valley last year that the aerospace industry must work more closely with high-tech companies - some of which, like Google, are encroaching on its turf through drone projects.

Boeing (NYSE:BA)'s Chief Executive Jim McNerney said last year it wanted it to be more like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the way it innovates, rather than doing a "moonshot" development every 25 years.

Both planemakers have talked of the need to introduce improvements more quickly, without waiting for all-new plane developments that take years and cost around $15 billion.

Though the highly safety-regulated and capital-intensive aerospace industry will always be conservative about the major bets that drive plane developments, Enders wants Airbus to learn to act "more quickly and with more courage", an aide said.

Aerospace companies say they are increasingly thinking about software rather than hardware throughout their businesses.

Although next month will still see hundreds of jet orders at the Paris Airshow, the focus of competition between Airbus and Boeing is shifting quickly towards the way they build planes now that each has almost a decade's worth of orders to fulfill.

© Reuters. People are silhouetted past a logo of the Airbus Group during the Airbus annual news conference in Colomiers

On Thursday, Airbus presented to journalists its plans for a futuristic factory in which humans, robots and cobots - or collaborative robots - interact to make planes more smoothly and cheaply, but acknowledged it would not happen overnight.

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.