Latvia-based Aerones Ltd., a world-leading provider of artificial intelligence-driven robotic inspection and maintenance of wind turbines, today announced it has raised $62 million to expand its operations and develop its technology stack.

The funding round was co-led by Activate Capital and S2G Investments, with additional participation from new investors Carbon Equity and Overlap Holdings, and existing investors Lightrock, Blume Equity, Metaplanet, Change Ventures and Extantia. This capital riase follows the company raising a €4 million grant, around $4.5 million, from the EU Innovation Fund in 2024 and $30 million in 2023.

As a company, Aerones provides an entire family of robots and drones for facilitating the inspection and maintenance of wind turbines. This is important as the global wind industry continues to grow in scale. According to a workforce study published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2024, estimated that by 2030 the demand for workers could hit a shortfall of around 124,000 workers in the United States alone.

“Our mission is to automate wind turbine inspection and maintenance globally,” said Dainis Kruze, co-founder and chief executive of Aerones. “The world cannot meet its renewable energy goals without innovation — and there simply aren’t enough qualified technicians to keep up with the growth of this industry.”

Aerones brings a fleet of different robotic tools, all powered by AI, into technicians’ hands, controlled and monitored from the comfort of a vehicle.

They include external inspectors that can move up and down the entirety of the wind turbine and examine the surface of the tower and the blades using robots, including a flying drone — and a robot capable of examining the internal portions of the structure.

The maintenance robots are moved into position with ropes and winches that allow them to apply various tools that are controlled using high-precision AI for cleaning, maintenance and repairs.

Since 2020, the company says that it has assisted with retaining nearly 400,000-megawatt-hours of additional clean electricity and helped avoid 165,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions through servicing more than 10,000 turbines annually in more than 30 countries.

“As a supplier, Aerones has provided us with various robotic solutions for wind turbine blade inspections and maintenance, and we’ve seen steady progress in both their technology and service delivery,” said Veronica Barner, wind energy product executive at GE Vernova Inc., a global energy company. “Their technology is helping to address safety and services productivity in wind farms around the globe.”

Aerones opened an office in Dallas, Texas, in 2024 and said that with this investment it will significantly expand its operational capacity worldwide, including within the U.S. and internationally. The company also said it intends to use the new capital to accelerate the development of AI-driven automation, robotics and customer-facing solutions for advanced predictive maintenance tools using data from thousands of robotic inspections.

Photo: Aerones