H2 View understands that HyLight will apply the funding to achieve three milestones. Firstly, it will allow the company to launch large-scale operations and therefore support the expansion of its network via strategic partnerships.

The funds will enable HyLight to recruit new experts in the aviation regulation, embedded systems, hydrogen systems and software development fields. The company will also develop new versions of its airship drones that meet aeronautical and industrial standards, being more efficient, safer and easier to produce on a large-scale.

Businesses including Y Combinator, Ring Capital, Kima Ventures, Collaborative Fund and Tesla’s Co-Founder, Marc Tarpenning, led the financing. HyLight will now be integrated into the start-up accelerator, Y Combinator.

It will also join the SkyDeck accelerator run by the French Transport Innovation Agency and the EDHEC network via Générations – the seed fund of Ring Capital and EDHEC.

HyLight’s CEO, Martin Bocken claimed the financing will be “decisive” for the company. “It allows us to realise our vision of providing large-scale infrastructure inspection in a decarbonised and highly precise manner,” he said.

“With the support of our investors, we are ready to redefine the standards of industrial inspection and meet growing environmental and regulatory requirements.”

Sibylle Behaghel, Investor at the Générations fund, added, “Their [HyLight] airship, which we visited at their site at base 217 in Brétigny [France], is a very impressive, patented innovation, but more importantly, it is an effective ecological alternative that replaces helicopters, which are much more expensive and polluting.”