The Catalan company, based in Molins de Rei, designs, produces, markets and maintains large-scale inflatable structures and hangars for the aeronautical and industrial sectors.
ICF's Capital Expansió fund has invested 1 million euros into the capital of Catalan company BuildAir, which specialises in designing, producing, marketing and maintaining large-scale inflatable structures and hangars, mainly used in the aeronautical and defence sectors. The investment was carried out by means of a capital increase in order to boost the company's growth.
In particular, with this capital increase, BuildAir will increase its commercial activity in order to boost the aeronautical sector in Europe and the Middle East, where the company already has a significant presence. It will also begin expanding towards the US aeronautical industry and will break into new markets such as composting, mining, civil engineering and structures for humanitarian aid and healthcare camps.
BuildAir was set up in 2001 as a spin-off of CIMNE (the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering), a consortium between the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Catalan Government. Initially, the focus was on designing and producing inflatable tents for corporate events, but in 2012 it embarked on a transformation of the business model to focus on providing more versatile and more value-added solutions than those offered by the traditional fixed structures of the aeronautical and industrial sectors. These are manufactured as modular structures which are portable, can be erected very quickly and can be subsequently extended upon.
The Catalan company, a world leader in the design and manufacture of inflatable hangars for aircraft maintenance, controls the entire product cycle so as to offer a comprehensive solution to the customer's needs: from early engineering, to production and maintenance and supervision of installations through sensors and other alarm and surveillance systems.
In addition to its domestic projects, BuildAir has also worked in Poland, Morocco, Hungary, Singapore, Brazil and Chile. It is currently developing projects in the Middle East, where it has installed the world's largest inflatable aircraft hangar. Its main clients are Airbus D&S, Lufthansa Technik, Summit Poslka and Saudia Airlines.