EPlane, an electronic marketplace startup for aviation aftermarket parts and MRO, announced March 24 that it landed $9 million in new funding from Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corp.
Founded in 2016 and launched fully in 2018, Cyprus-based ePlane said it receives more than $50 million worth of monthly demands from more than 4,000 major companies in the aerospace industry. It claims 6,000 end users. The company’s platform relies on an artificial intelligence algorithm to match buyers and sellers based on needs, available inventory, past transactions and required time frame–“even automatically sending requests for quotes to appropriate sellers.”
Marubeni is a sogo shosha, a large Japanese company that does business in a wide range of products and markets. According to ePlane, Marubeni sees ePlane as “the most innovative company in the aerospace industry, recognizing their ongoing organic growth.
“The projected growth of the aerospace industry over the next years is rapidly increasing, and the need to bring new technologies and methods to the market is critical,” the statement continued. “Marubeni strongly believes ePlane is the future of the industry.”
