Drones have long promised a better way, but can’t combine long range with the precision these networks require. The HyLighter can. This autonomous airship covers up to 350 kilometres a day, can loiter for extended periods in close-up checks and has EASA approval to fly over densely populated areas, even at night. Lifted by helium and powered electrically by hydrogen, it produces no direct emissions and far less noise than a helicopter. On board are LiDAR, visual and infrared cameras, and methane sensors. 

From inspection to infrastructure intelligence
Back on the ground, software turns the raw data into clear insights for maintenance teams. Instead of thousands of images, they see what needs attention, where it is and the evidence behind it. With every flight the picture gets more detailed, so operators can move from reactive repairs to predictive maintenance. 

Swapping helicopters for airships cuts both emissions and costs, and there’s a clear path to further savings and automation. The bigger impact comes from better monitoring. Operators catch methane leaks, vegetation risks and defects earlier, which makes the energy infrastructure we all depend on more reliable. And the more kilometres HyLight inspects, the more helicopter flights it can replace. 

Last year’s inspections covered under 500 kilometres. In 2026 that will be more than 16,000, anchored by a contract with French grid operator Enedis. The team has shown a rare ability to build and sell on the intersection of the heavily regulated worlds of aviation and infrastructure. All the ingredients are there to make low-emission, high-precision inspections the standard across Europe.  

Martin Bocken (CEO), Josef Rokusek (CTO) and Thomas Laporte (CBO) founded HyLight in 2022 and refined the idea at Berkeley SkyDeck and Y Combinator. Martin is a hands-on technical founder who steered the HyLighter through Europe’s aviation rules. Josef leads engineering, with a background in mechanical modelling. Thomas takes what Martin and Josef build and brings it to the customers. Together they lead an international team at Air Base 217 near Paris, where they design, build and fly their own aircraft.

VREY turns this regulatory unlock into real solar on real rooftops. As a certified smart metering operator with automated billing software, they give landlords the tools to measure each tenant’s share of the solar and invoice them directly. Property owners earn a return on their rooftop. Tenants pay less on their electricity bill. Nobody has to switch energy supplier. The platform also supports batteries, heat pumps and EV charging, turning each building into a smarter energy system.

Why we invest in VREY

Energy is a core focus for Rubio’s Planet team: we look for scalable technology that cuts carbon emissions in how electricity is produced and used. VREY turns one of the largest and most overlooked pieces of that puzzle into a genuine triple win: property owners earn extra income, tenants lower their bill, and carbon emissions in residential power supply come down. All the ingredients are there for VREY to become the EnergyOS for Europe’s multi-family buildings. Together with Kopa Ventures and the High-Tech Gründerfonds, Rubio leads VREY’s Seed round.

VREY was founded in 2024 by Julius Pahmeier and Cedric Jaeger. Julius has been fascinated with sustainability and real estate since his teens and designed his studies around building a company at that intersection. Cedric brings energy consulting experience from Roland Berger, working directly with utilities. Together they lead a team of around 20 people in Berlin, serving individual property owners, housing cooperatives, project developers and large real estate companies, with a three-digit number of projects running across all 16 German federal states.

Prets believes the loan application process adds more complexity to average consumers and that it can develop the solutions needed to reach the 1.7 million households that do not have the cash to invest. They’ve built an embedded return on investment calculator and independent financial platform for sustainable home renovations. Their tool lives inside energy retailer’s websites and apps and focuses on showing the potential returns and cash savings from investing in sustainable home renovations, personalized to a home’s specific energy usage patterns and family budget. It then aids the customer in identifying the right way to finance these investments and streamlining the overall process.

Prets was founded by serial entrepreneur Eugène Lubbers and Gerard van Swieten, with Peer Fisser as late joiner.

Renewaball was founded in Amsterdam in 2021 by an amazing mission driven tea; Hélène Hoogeboom (CEO) and Marc Rouffaer (CMO), two branding and advertising experts with past experiences at ao TBWA\Neboko & tcc global and Günther van de Rijt (COO), who is a supply chain expert with previous corporate and scale-up experience at Philips, Ista and Sartorius.

At Rubio we are especially excited about the potential to inspire the entire sporting goods industry to be more circular by proving Renewaball’s recycling model works for other products too, in other words: the systemic impact potential. We believe that by supporting Renewaball, we can contribute to a mindset shift towards sustainability in tennis and padel.

Amber was founded in Australia in 2019 by Daniel Adams (ex. Tesla, BCG, Make Poverty History) and Christopher Thompson (ex. BCG) who are driven by a mission to automate millions of batteries worldwide for the energy transition – all while helping real people save big on their energy bills.

Amber is well poised for global growth, having demonstrated strong product market fit in the Australian market with rapid expansion of hydrid energy retail and smart asset optimisation business. They have also taken advantage of Australia’s exceptionally high battery adoption, building Smartshift into a world-leading home storage automation technology.

With this headstart, Amber has its sights set on launching Smartshift into the UK & European market, where the market opportunity in the UK represents over €1b alone and the total European market is up to 10x the size. This is riding tailwinds to capture market share as more renewables means more flexibility is required, and grids are modernising to enable companies like Amber to provide this service.

Bepoc makes it possible for every brand to offer this. Their solution is fast to deploy, going live within a week with minimal front-end adjustments, enabling customers to engage in circular commerce without even realizing they’re on the Bepoc-platform.

At Rubio, we believe that Bepoc is a game-changer. Led by a ambitious, and diverse founding team, Bepoc champions the “circular-first” mindset, helping companies adopt sustainable practices from the start. Currently, Bepoc is the embedded re-commerce provider for some of the largest Dutch retailers and is expanding internationally.

RABLE’s system uses a so-called “truss construction”. This is a construction that lends its stability to triangles, and is used, among other things, on bridges and the scaffolding above highways on which traffic signs are placed. Thanks to this construction, the system can handle a span of up to 25 meters, and supports the weight evenly on the areas of the building that can handle. Because the system carries its own weight and that of the panels it can therefore be applied directly to weak roofs, without structural renovation and investment on buildings with roof construction limitations.

Together with regional investment Energietransitiefonds Rotterdam (through Innovation Quarter)) we are investing in RABLE to set up their production and enter the market with their system and by doing so unlocking the solar energy potential of all roofs.

The impact of E-Magy’s patented production process is twofold: the emissions in producing the material are roughly six times lower than graphite and the weight reduction when applied in for instance electric vehicles, also reduces energy usage per km driven. On a total life-cycle-analysis-basis, E-Magy’s product is simply superior.

The team of advanced materials specialists has been working on the technology since roughly 2005 and runs a pilot plant in The Netherlands. In their production facility, they use a proprietary process with standard industrial post-processing to manufacture nano-porous silicon. They are currently scaling up to realise a fully commercial production line in 2023, for 300 tons (2.5 GWh battery storage capacity) per year.

Partnering with renowned organisations like the Advanced Battery Technologies team at ZSW, the Battery Research Group at Delft University of Technology, BEPA (Batteries European Partnership Association), TEESMAT (European Battery Material Platform), EBA 250 (European Battery Alliance) and the European Research Initiative Battery2030+, the E-magy team are rapidly advancing, pushing battery innovation forward. Electron by electron, they are switching the EV industry on with their specialty silicon.

RIFT was founded by three friends from Eindhoven University of Technology, Mark Verhagen, Vincent Seijger and Lex Scheepers who worked together on iron fuel technology development in student team SOLID. This student team was part of the Metal Power Consortium and worked closely with the founding father of iron fuel, professor Philip de Goey. Mark, Vincent and Lex founded RIFT in 2021 to provide commercial access to this promising new clean fuel. Since then the team has developed the technology further and expanded with senior experts in the industry.

We invested together with the BOM and Energietransitiefonds Rotterdam. And more good news, because Bill Gates also joined This private investment coalition (founded by Bill Gates) aims to accelerate the development of technologies that will contribute to a climate-neutral world in 2050. Through this Fellows program RIFT will receive a considerable grant to accelerate their technological development and also gets access to world-class mentoring and education.