Nexen Tire invests in US urban air mobility startup ANRA Technologies

Nexen Tire Corp., Korea’s third-largest tire maker, has made an undisclosed amount of equity investment in ANRA Technologies, a US urban air mobility startup.

Nexen Tire said on Monday it is investing in ANRA through Next Century Ventures (NCV), a corporate venture capital firm that the Korean tire maker jointly launched with Nexen Corp. in March.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, NCV targets startups with advanced technologies in mobility as a service (MaaS), eco-friendly vehicles and self-driving cars, particularly in the US, Europe and China.

Nexen Tire said its equity purchase in ANRA marks the first time that a Korean tire maker has invested in a UAM-focused startup in the US, without revealing the size of its investment.

ANRA Technologies develops uncrewed aircraft system traffic management (UTM) technology that acts as a traffic control tower for urban air transportation. The US tech startup also provides solutions for drone operations.

EYES FURTHER INVESTMENT IN UAM STARTUPS

In the US, ANRA is working with NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration to develop a UTM project. In Europe, the company is involved in another UTM project with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

In India, ANRA maintains a partnership with Swiggy, India’s largest online food ordering and delivery platform.

ANRA said in October it is entering the Japanese drone market by offering airspace management and drone delivery software platforms to a project run by NEC Corp. and All Nippon Airways (ANA).

“We’re paying close attention to ANRA’s innovative technology and its expanding mobility business scope. We will continue to search good mobility startups for investment,” said an official at Next Century Ventures.

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.