To help aviation start-up ventures gain financial footing post-pandemic as they develop new commercial applications that rely on ADS-B data, a partnership has been announced by AirNav Systems and BrightCap Ventures to offer funding to seleced start-ups. The goal is to address the various challenges in the field of flight safety, ground and flight operations enhancements, aircraft health monitoring, aircraft operating conditions, UAV operations, and anti-UAV systems as the industry moves on fro the COVID-19 crisis.

AirNav Systems is a global flight tracking and monitoring company based in Tampa, Florida, with a research and development center in Europe that provides related data to aviation service providers worldwide. BrightCap Ventures is an early-stage, tech-focused VC fund registered in the Netherlands with its main office in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Called the “Kitty Hawk Challenge,” the partnership aims to identify start-ups worldwide via a rigorous selecion process that includes an in-depth review of each potential company to launch a new funding program for start-up ventures anxious to leverage ADS-B data and technology solutions.

Selected startups will receive up to €200,000 (approximately $218,000) equity funding fro BrightCap Ventures. In addition to the capital and mentoring/oversight of BrightCap, these startups will also be given the opportunity to collaborate with AirNav Systems LLC to utilize the company’s available historical and real-time tracking data to best develop the technology solutions that exhibit both engineering maturity and go-to-market capabilities. Upon further progress with product commercialization, BrightCap Ventures can invest up to €3,500,000 (approximately $3,815,000) in selected startups as part of further Seed/Series A rounds.