NRMA has decided to financially support airport check-in systems maker Elenium Automation as it moves beyond the aviation sector.
The insurance giant has confirmed that it will invest around $10 million in Elenium’s $30 million funding round, leaving it at $133 million.
“COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact by restricting and isolating society. Elenium’s technology will help Australia and other countries re-open, and we are supporting them to get it into as many locations as possible so we can move about safely once more,” said NRMA chief executive Rohan Lund, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Elenium, which was founded by Aaron Hornlimann in 2016, makes check-in kiosks and bag-drop technology for airports and aims to launch an initial public offering next year. It is seeking other investors to fill up the rest of the funding round. Last year, it also raised $15 million from investors and secured a deal to have its technology deployed at Avalon airport.
Hornlimann said the company has been able to manage the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the aviation sector, having retained most of its contracts and access to the government’s JobKeeper programme for its 80 employees.
“When COVID-19 hit, we said ‘well we imagine that the world is going to become more focused on hygiene and not wanting to touch common surfaces’, so taking that contactless technology and applying it not just to the airport space but also in information kiosks in a shopping centre, or ATMs, or a whole range of other places makes sense,” Hornlimann said.
“We’ve now deployed the technology in places like the United Arab Emirates and America, and other places, and hopefully we’ll be able to deploy elements of the technology here in Australia once we finish going through the regulatory process.”
