French aerospace company HyLight has secured €13 million in a funding round led by Rubio Impact Ventures, DRW, and Teampact Ventures, with continued backing from Y Combinator and Ring Capital, according to EU-Startups. The round brings total funding to approximately $18.6 million, as reported by FinSMEs.
Founded in 2022 and operating out of Air Base 217 in Brétigny-sur-Orge near Paris, HyLight replaces traditional helicopter patrols of linear infrastructure with unmanned, hydrogen-powered airships. The capital will fund fleet manufacturing expansion from four aircraft today to 15 operating simultaneously by 2027, advance AI-based defect detection software, and support a 50-person hiring push across engineering, operations, and commercial roles.
Decarbonizing Long-Range Infrastructure Inspection
More than 80 million kilometers of linear infrastructure worldwide require recurring inspection to identify faults, gas leaks, and vegetation intrusion. While utilities historically depended on manned helicopters that generate up to a metric ton of CO₂e per flight hour, alternative systems have had trade-offs: battery multicopters lack range, satellites lack fine resolution, and ground sensors cover only discrete points.
HyLight’s flagship vehicle, the 12-meter HyLighter, is a helium-inflated, hydrogen-electric blimp engineered for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flights. Operating at low altitudes between 20 and 30 meters, the aircraft cruises at speeds between 10 and 20 km/h with an endurance of up to 10 hours and an operational range reaching 350 kilometers per mission. It carries up to 10 kilograms of payload, integrating high-resolution cameras that capture 1 mm/pixel imagery, LiDAR collecting over 1,000 points per square meter, and specialized equipment such as the Pergam Falcon+ methane leak detector.
The company has logged over 750 flight hours and inspected thousands of kilometers of lines across France and neighboring European countries, including nearly 3,000 kilometers in September 2026 alone, reported Tech.eu. HyLight already operates commercial inspection missions for five major utilities and transport operators: Enedis, NaTran, Téréga, SNCF Réseau, and VINCI.
Beyond data acquisition, HyLight processes raw imagery into structured insights through in-house machine learning models. The platform automatically detects and geolocates more than 50 categories of electrical defects and vegetation risks, feeding long-term digital twins of utility corridors.
Founder Backgrounds
HyLight was co-founded by Martin Bocken, Josef Rokusek, and Thomas Laporte, who met during academic and accelerator programs at UC Berkeley.
- Martin Bocken (CEO): Holds degrees across Neoma Business School, the University of Shanghai, and the University of Technology of Troyes, followed by Berkeley SkyDeck. He steers company strategy, regulatory relationships, and corporate financing.
- Josef Rokusek (CTO): Holds an engineering degree in mechanical engineering from INSA Lyon and a master's degree from Université du Québec à Rimouski. He directs the design, systems architecture, and embedded electronics of the airship platform.
- Thomas Laporte (CBO): Holds degrees in corporate law from Panthéon-Assas University and management from emlyon business school and UC Berkeley. He leads enterprise partnerships, commercial contracts, and international expansion.
Early co-founder Théo Hoenen assisted in launching the initial 2021 airship prototype before departing the company.
Industrializing Production and European Expansion
With commercial contracts scaling, HyLight is shifting from prototype testing to industrial fleet operations. The company recently brought a dedicated manufacturing site online to produce airship components in-house, backed by approvals from France's civil aviation authority (DGAC) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for BVLOS flight in rural, suburban, and urban airspace.
The €13 million Series A will finance geographic expansion across Northern and Western Europe, prioritizing Germany and the Netherlands. Commercial roles such as Country Lead - Germany and Founding Account Executive point to this regional focus.
Engineering efforts are dividing between flight avionics and backend data processing. On the vehicle side, HyLight is recruiting an Autonomous Drones Engineer and a Senior Electronics Engineer to build guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) loops and hardware telemetry. In the cloud, positions such as Software / Cloud / Data Engineer, Client Insights Platform are building out the automated pipelines that deliver asset health insights directly to infrastructure maintenance crews.
Open Roles at HyLight
HyLight is currently hiring for 27 positions based out of Paris, France, spanning flight operations, aerospace engineering, software development, and go-to-market teams:
