Insider Brief
- Swiss aerial robotics firm Voliro has extended its Series A round to $23 million with new investment from noa and a debt facility from UBS, following earlier backing by Cherry Ventures; the funding will support global deployment and development of Voliro’s inspection drone platform.
- Voliro’s T platform uses a patented tiltable-rotor design and swappable sensor payloads to perform high-precision, contact-based inspections on hard-to-reach infrastructure like flare stacks, wind turbines, and transmission towers, reducing downtime and safety risks by eliminating the need for scaffolding and rope access.
- With over 40 customers in 17 countries and growing demand driven by aging infrastructure and workforce shortages, Voliro is expanding its technology toward full autonomy and AI-powered diagnostics, addressing a critical need for safer, more frequent, and cost-effective industrial asset inspections.
PRESS RELEASE – Voliro, a Swiss pioneer in aerial robotics, announced an extension of its Series A round, bringing the total raised to $23 million. Voliro’s Series A extension saw new participation from noa and the addition of a debt facility from UBS. The original round was led by Cherry Ventures. This additional capital will accelerate the development and global deployment of Voliro’s autonomous aerial inspection robots—designed to modernize infrastructure maintenance, enhance industrial safety, and address growing workforce shortages.
Built on a patented tiltable-rotor design and equipped with interchangeable sensor payloads, the Voliro T platform represents a new standard in intelligent, contact-based inspection. As the world faces mounting challenges from aging infrastructure and environmental pressures, Voliro’s technology offers a scalable, data-driven solution for safer, more sustainable operations. This breakthrough, born in Europe, exemplifies how homegrown innovation can drive global technological advancement.
As industrial assets age, failures in critical, hard-to-access structures like flare stacks, storage tanks, chimneys, and towers are becoming more frequent, risky, and costly. Investigations into major accidents over the past decade repeatedly cite corrosion, wall thinning, or undetected fatigue as root causes—issues that are frequently overlooked because traditional inspections are costly, infrequent, and largely reactive. These failures are not anomalies. Studies show that up to 30% of major industrial accidents in Europe involve aging infrastructure and integrity issues. Globally, corrosion-related failures are estimated to cost the economy $2.5 trillion annually. Traditional inspection methods rely on scaffolding, rope access, and shutdowns—approaches that introduce significant risk, delay critical diagnostics, and limit how often inspections can be performed.
At the same time, in the U.S., nearly two-thirds of certified NDT (non-destructive testing) professionals are over 40, reflecting a broader trend seen across OECD countries, where a wave of retirements is accelerating due to aging populations. As experienced inspectors exit the workforce, industries face an urgent need for smarter technology and tools that reduce reliance on manual access while attracting a new generation of digital-native technicians.
Voliro addresses this dual challenge with a new class of aerial robots designed to inspect hard-to-reach infrastructure safely and efficiently. From flare stacks and storage tanks to wind turbine blades and transmission towers, the Voliro T platform empowers asset owners across the energy, chemicals, and renewables sectors to detect issues early with proactive maintenance and reduce downtime. In the fast-growing wind industry, where uptime is crucial, Voliro enables 5x faster wind turbine lightning protection system (LPS) inspections with instant insights—cutting downtime and reducing inspection costs by up to 50%, all without manual access.
Since its founding, Voliro has established a strong global footprint with 40+ customers in 17 countries, including Chevron, Holcim, and Acuren. Performing 100+ contact inspections monthly, Voliro is the recognized leader in aerial contact inspection, with proven success across complex industrial environments. By transforming how inspections are conducted, Voliro is not only strengthening resilience in infrastructure maintenance but also helping to modernize the profession itself—making it appealing to a new generation of skilled technicians.
As Europe’s largest venture capital firm dedicated to innovation in the built world, noa backs technologies that align with its core themes of sustainability, industrial resilience, and workforce transformation.
Large scale Industrial inspections are a massive opportunity for robotics and automation disruption. Both aging and new assets, whether industrial, energy or infrastructure related, will benefit from more frequent, automated, reliable, and data-driven inspections,” Gregory Dewerpe, Founder and Managing Partner at noa.
”We’re delighted to partner with Voliro, a breakthrough platform with the potential to transform how critical infrastructure is maintained and safeguarded in the decades to come, and our first investment in my home country of Switzerland.” said Gregory Dewerpe, Founder and Managing Partner at noa.
The new investment will accelerate the development of the next-generation Voliro T platform—including deeper cloud integration with the support of AI-powered inspection reporting diagnostics, enhanced autonomy, and modular payloads. These advancements mark a shift from semi-automated inspection toward full autonomy—and from passive sensing to active intervention—pushing the boundaries of what aerial robots can do in industrial environments.
“Voliro’s technology directly addresses a trifecta of global needs: improving industrial resilience and safety, enabling the climate adaptation and energy transition by better maintaining assets like wind farms, and alleviating severe workforce shortages in the inspection field. Our technology represents a necessary tool to protect the built environment that we all rely on.” Florian Gutzwiller, Voliro’s CEO.
Gutzwiller adds: “Infrastructure is the backbone of modern civilization—and maintaining it is one of the great challenges of our time. With the support of noa Ventures and a growing network of forward-looking customers, we’re delivering on a vision that once felt like science fiction: autonomous aerial robots at the forefront of industrial intelligence. By combining cutting-edge robotics with real-world safety, sustainability, and workforce needs, we’re contributing to a smarter future for the modern world.”
