HYLIGHT raises 13 million euros to make the airship an industrial maintenance tool

After its first missions for large network managers, HyLight wants to increase its inspection capacity in Europe. The startup announces 13 million euros to industrialize its fleet of autonomous airships and strengthen the analysis of the data collected. Its next milestone will be to make this service reproducible, with fifteen aircraft operated simultaneously in 2027.

A damaged insulator, vegetation too close to the conductors, a methane leak: infrastructure monitoring consists of identifying localized anomalies on networks that extend over thousands of kilometers. For managers, the difficulty is to reconcile the distance to cover, the depth of observations and the frequency of inspections.

It is around this compromise that HyLight has built its offer. Its airship carries sensors at low altitudes, then the company’s software transforms their readings into information for maintenance teams. After having developed and operated its first devices, the company must now organize the manufacturing, operation and processing of data on a larger scale.

Fly a long time to observe up close

Twelve meters long, the HyLighter combines the lift of an airship with electric propulsion powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. The lift gas and the energy source fulfill two distinct functions: Teréga specifies that the devices used in its experiment are inflated with helium.

HyLight announces up to ten hours of flight, a target distance of 350 kilometers and a carrying capacity of ten kilograms of sensors. Cameras, LiDAR and methane detectors can meet different needs. The images are used to observe the equipment; LiDAR, which measures distances by laser, makes it possible to reconstruct their geometry and assess the proximity of vegetation; gas sensors look for methane emissions.

The company claims images reaching a resolution of 1mm per pixel at 25 meters altitude. This resolution describes the fineness of the image, without alone guaranteeing equivalent measurement or geolocation precision. Endurance and coverage performance must also be related to onboard load and mission conditions.

The architecture allows sensors to be kept near networks long enough to collect detailed observations. It opens up the possibility of substituting certain helicopter inspections.

Real missions and still differentiated deployments

HyLight claims more than 750 flight hours and thousands of kilometers inspected in France and Europe. The company lists Enedis, NaTran, Teréga, SNCF Réseau and VINCI among its clients.

“Our HyLighters already do the same work, with more precision and less risk,” says Martin Bocken, co-founder and CEO of HyLight, about helicopter missions.

In its 2024 activity report, NaTran describes tests on 40 kilometers of networks, with an on-board leak detection sensor.

In February 2026, Teréga presents an experiment over a 107-kilometer section, with bimonthly overflights carried out in addition to helicopters. The objective is to evaluate the response to the technical, regulatory and operational requirements of pipeline monitoring.

Fifteen devices require industrial organization

HyLight announces a production site now operational and continues the internalization of strategic components. Its objective is to go from four aircraft operated simultaneously today to fifteen in 2027.

This increase involves the entire organization. It is necessary to manufacture and maintain aircraft, prepare missions, deploy teams, ensure their supervision and absorb additional data.

HyLight’s integrated model brings together aeronautical engineering, software, AI and operations. This proximity makes it possible to pass on mission constraints to the teams developing the device and its tools. It also concentrates the responsibilities and expenses of each stage in the company. In 2020, the creation of Alteia from Delair’s software activities illustrated the growing importance of image analysis in this value chain.

The fifty recruitments announced are to strengthen engineering, AI and data, operations, regulatory affairs and commercial development.

Competition takes place in the air and in software

HyLight evolves against several competing architectures. The Finnish Kelluu is also developing autonomous airships and data services. The company announced a €15 million Series A in April 2026, led by the NATO Innovation Fund, with Keen Venture Partners, Gungnir Capital and Tesi. In September, it presented a new factory planned for summer 2027, with a target capacity of one hundred devices per year. Its development is strongly oriented towards defense, while retaining civil applications.

The South African Cloudline offers another energy chain, based on batteries and solar power, for airships intended in particular for the inspection of energy and mining infrastructures. In France, Delair supplies fixed-wing drones suitable for mapping and certain network inspections. The comparison therefore depends on the type of defect sought, the distance, the payload and the flight conditions. The development of Delair was notably supported by an investment from Intel in 2018 to strengthen the analysis of aerial data.

Another competition concerns the information delivered. Hepta Insights and Sharper Shape offer tools for analysis, anomaly detection and digital representation of networks, powered by different collection means. In gas, Bridger Photonics specializes in aerial detection and quantification of methane emissions.

Manufacturers are also seeking to integrate these capabilities into their offerings. In its half-year results published in July 2026, Schneider Electric announces an agreement to acquire approximately 90% of AiDASH, a specialist in monitoring assets, vegetation and climate risks using satellites and AI.

For HyLight, differentiation must bring together quality of observations, availability, cost and integration into maintenance.

Transform readings into maintenance decisions

HyLight claims to be able to automatically identify and geolocate more than fifty types of faults, as well as risks linked to vegetation on electrical networks. The interest for the manager is to receive exploitable anomalies, with their location, rather than having to examine thousands of images themselves.

The value of this automation will depend on its reliability: missed critical defects, false alarms, human validation time and restitution time. A detection must be able to be linked to equipment and contribute to preparing an intervention.

Successive inspections can also constitute a history of the state of the networks. The digital twin envisaged by HyLight will depend on the frequency of passages, the comparability of observations and their integration with customer data. Future uses in insurance, agriculture and territorial management open up perspectives, after the initial inspection market.

Weather and clearances determine usable capacity

Long endurance is an advantage, but the airship must move forward and hold its trajectory. Headwind reduces progress on the ground, and maintaining a given cadence can increase the power required. Ten hours of flight therefore does not guarantee an equivalent distance inspected in all conditions.

If hydrogen makes it possible to carry a significant quantity of energy per unit of mass, its benefit must be assessed with the entire system: storage, fuel cell and auxiliary equipment. HyLight will also have to organize supply and filling in its intervention areas. The absence of direct emissions in flight does not constitute a complete climate assessment, which depends in particular on fuel production and logistics.

Flights outside the sight of the remote pilot add a deployment constraint, within the European framework of the “specific” category, the authorizations define operating conditions and are based, depending on the operation, on an assessment of the risks on the ground and in the airspace. Cross-border operations require approaches adapted to the applicable regime and local conditions. An authorization therefore does not constitute general freedom of flight over European territories.

Germany and the Netherlands are among the priority markets announced by HyLight.

Founded in 2022 by Martin Bocken, Josef Rokusek and Thomas Laporte, and based in Brétigny-sur-Orge, HyLight announces a fundraising of 13 million euros from Rubio Impact Ventures, DRW and Teampact Ventures, with the participation of its historic investors Y Combinator and Ring Capital. The funds are to finance the industrialization of the fleet, the strengthening of automated analysis, fifty recruitments and commercial expansion in Europe, with the objective of simultaneously operating fifteen HyLighters in 2027.