Pelico has secured a strategic investment from AE Ventures, the venture capital platform of AE Industrial Partners, to support the expansion of its AI-powered manufacturing orchestration business in North America. Announced on July 23, 2026, during the Farnborough International Airshow, the transaction brings together a manufacturing software company and an investor focused on aerospace, national security, and industrial markets. The companies did not disclose the size or other financial terms of the investment.
A Partnership Built Around Aerospace
The agreement is designed to provide Pelico with more than additional capital by connecting the company to AE Industrial Partners’ network of aerospace and defense manufacturers, suppliers, operators, and strategic investors. Through those relationships, Pelico expects to gain broader access to prospective customers and industry expertise as it builds its presence across the North American market. The partnership also gives AE Ventures exposure to software intended to improve execution across complex and highly regulated industrial operations.
Addressing Factory Execution Challenges
Pelico’s platform is built to help manufacturing teams coordinate planning, supply, production, and delivery when factories face shortages, disruptions, and shifting priorities. It creates a shared operational view by combining data from different systems, allowing teams to identify emerging problems, assess their effects, and focus on the actions most likely to protect output. This approach is particularly relevant in aerospace, where large order backlogs and multi-tier supply chains can make delays difficult to detect and resolve.
Reported Operational Improvements
According to Pelico, customers can deploy its technology in as little as 12 weeks, and users have reported measurable improvements in factory performance. The company said manufacturers using the platform have achieved average reductions of 40 percent in parts shortages and 40 percent in cycle times, alongside a 15 percent improvement in on-time delivery. These figures were provided by Pelico and were not independently verified in the investment announcement.
Expanding From Production to Sustainment
Pelico is already used by manufacturers including Boeing, Safran, and Daikin, giving the company established reference points as it pursues further aerospace and defense adoption. Its work also extends beyond new production into sustainment and maintenance, where coordination between planning, supply, and shop-floor teams can directly influence aircraft availability. Boeing Global Services is using the platform to support a shared operational picture across complex maintenance and repair activities, according to the release.
Leadership and Investor Background
Pelico was founded in Paris in 2019 by Tarik Benabdallah, Mamoun Alaoui, and Jonathan Hickson, and the company now positions its software as an orchestration layer for factory operations. Benabdallah, Pelico’s chief executive, said the AE Ventures relationship would help the business reach deeper into the aerospace and defense ecosystem and accelerate its North American development. AE Ventures partner Tyler Rowe said the investor viewed execution as a central bottleneck in aerospace and saw Pelico as a platform capable of improving delivery performance.
The investment gives Pelico a sector-focused partner as industrial companies seek faster ways to respond to supply chain volatility and convert strong order books into completed deliveries. For AE Ventures, the deal adds a manufacturing software company to a portfolio strategy centered on early-stage technologies serving aerospace, national security, and industrial customers. Pelico’s next challenge will be turning the investor’s network and industry access into wider deployments while demonstrating that its reported factory improvements can be repeated at scale.