NextStage AM announces an investment in deeptech Skipper NDT, a company that has developed proprietary and patented technology to preserve the natural resources we consume daily by making the infrastructure that transports them more reliable. NextStage AM is participating in this first funding round of 4 million euros.
This fundraising will allow the company to strengthen its international development and to add new service bricks around its approved technology and used by renowned manufacturers (Engie, Veolia, etc.) in Europe and abroad. international (North America, Asia, Africa).
Founded in 2016 by Maher and Luigi Kassir, Skipper NDT plans to double its workforce by the end of 2022. It currently employs a dozen people in its offices in Paris and Pau.
This investment is fully in line with NextStage AM's strategy to support innovative companies with high growth potential, and with – as far as Skipper NDT is concerned – disruptive technologies in its market.
Skipper NDT aims to support the ecological transition by preserving and limiting the waste of natural resources such as energy and water. As such, Skipper NDT has received the GreenTech label from the Ministry of Ecological Transition and has been identified by the Solar Impulse Foundation as one of 1000 clean and economically viable solutions to meet the ecological challenges of tomorrow.
Underground infrastructures transport 90% of the water and energy products that we consume on a daily basis around the world. These infrastructures require regular maintenance and monitoring in order to prevent incidents leading to dramatic human, environmental and material consequences. Indeed, according to the study by the Observatory of Public Water and Sanitation Services, it is estimated that up to 20% of drinking water would be lost due to leaks or accidental damage due to pipes. This is what led the French government to introduce the DT-DITC directive in 2012, requiring the centimetric geolocation of all sensitive underground networks by 2032, aiming to improve the precision of the geospatial mapping of these structures.
One of the major challenges of energy transport also lies in reducing the risks caused to infrastructures by third-party works. Underground work security threats can be significantly mitigated with centimeter-level geolocation accuracy (lateral, horizontal and depth of coverage). This is what prompted Skipper NDT to develop technology for pipeline mapping using drone-mounted magnetometers and geolocation equipment to create high-precision digital twins. Patented algorithms automatically process data eliminating the risk of human error.
The software platform and the processing tools make it possible to generate, thanks to the digital twin technology, results 3 times faster than those of traditional tools; which, moreover, cannot be deployed in 30% of the networks in the world (pipeline too narrow, no structure provided for the insertion of the robot or presence of bends that are too pronounced, etc.).
« In the current context and for the future, preserving natural resources is an essential act. The solution proposed by Skipper NDT is at the heart of these issues, and in the key investment themes of NextStage AM. The very strong growth experienced by Skipper NDT in a few years has convinced us of the solidity of its economic model; and we are proud to support its entrepreneurs in this new stage of industrialization and internationalization of their development », declares Aloys de Fontaines, Partner at NextStage AM, in charge of this operation.
Luigi Kassir, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Skipper NDT adds: “We are very happy to be supported by NextStage AM, which understands the technical nature of our profession and shares our convictions. This reinforces the robustness of our solution and its high added value on the market for operators in terms of operational safety and environmental efficiency. Our ambition now is to strengthen our international business development. »
Since its creation, Skipper NDT has been able to build a solid industrial and academic ecosystem. The company is the winner of the i-Lab 2017 competition, the 2019 Innovation Competition and the EIC H2020 program.
Recently Skipper NDT was among two companies selected annually to be part of the CTV Catalyst program, an initiative launched in 2017 by Chevron Technology Ventures to accelerate the maturation of early-stage companies that possess potentially environmentally beneficial technology.
Actors of the operation:
NextStage AM: Bastien Aversa, Aloys de Fontaines
About NextStage AM:
An independent management company based in Paris, approved by the AMF, NextStage AM, which has cultivated since the beginning in 2002, an "entrepreneur-investor" philosophy, is one of the pioneers and leaders of innovative and patient development capital in France. NextStage AM has developed, step by step, a multi-strategy Private Equity platform which represents in terms of assets at the end of March 2022, directly and indirectly, €7.1 billion in AUM. NextStage AM invests in a limited number of SMEs and ETIs (80 companies in the portfolio as of 31/03/2022), French and European, innovative and growing, to which it provides entrepreneurial expertise as an investor and strong operational support (integration innovation, talents, international, external growth). NextStage AM provides long-term support to these SMEs & ETIs. It gives them the means to accelerate their development and their capacity for innovation to become the "Champions" of their markets, both in France and internationally, through organic and/or external growth.
In December 2015, NextStage AM was awarded the Gold Award for the best player in development capital in Europe by Private Equity Awards, in 2017 NextStage Croissance won the special Jury Prize for Innovation Assets and in 2019 the Prize for writing, Private Equity category of the 2019 wealth management pyramids. With NextStage Champions III, dedicated to nuggets established in the territories, supplemented by the FPCI Capital Entrepreneur, reinvestment fund dedicated to entrepreneurs wishing to access the strategy developed for institutional investors, NextStage AM completes its development capital investment program and strengthens its capacity for intervention, particularly in the territories.
About Skipper NDT:
Founded in 2016 by Maher and Luigi Kassir, the French company Skipper NDT is at the forefront of innovation in high value-added services for critical water and energy infrastructures. Recognizing the need for information on underground assets and recognizing the potential of autonomous technologies such as drones to facilitate data collection, the company has developed a non-contact 3D pipeline mapping service to perform surface magnetic measurements.
Skipper NDT provides fast, continuous, and accurate data acquisition and access to remote locations, surpassing traditional manual mapping methods. The Skipper NDT mapping solution has been tested by several major European and North American operators.
A digital twin uses virtual and augmented reality as well as 3D graphics and data modeling to build a virtual model of a process, system, service, product or other physical object . This digital twin is an exact replica of the physical world, maintained by real-time updates.
Press Contacts :
NextStage AM:Jonathan Boudin – jbo@nextstage.com – (+33) 1 44 29 99 04
Shan : Alexandre Daudin - alexandre.daudin@shan.fr – (+33) 1 44 50 51 76 / Lola Gozlan – lola.gozlan@shan.fr – (+33) 1 42 86 82 47 / Anne-Laure Daulier – al.daulier@shan.fr – (+33) 6 28 59 50 38
Find the full Press Release in pdf format: https://nextstage-am.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CP-Skipper-NDT-specialise-dans-la-maintenance-predictive-et-linspection-des-infrastructures-enterrees-leve-4ME.pdf
