Moroccan AI Startup ATLAN Space Raises $1.1 Million Investment

Moroccan startup, ATLAN Space, has raised $1.1 million in Series A funding to further develop its AI system, which guides unmanned aircrafts on data collection and tracking missions over large geographical areas.

The investment was led by Maroc Numeric Fund II, and follows the Rabat-headquartered startup’s first round of seed funding in 2019 from Norway’s Katapult Ocean Fund. ATLAN Space currently holds commercial contracts in Morocco, Niger and Seychelles, thanks to its unique technology, which has won acclaim and recognition across the world for enabling governments and institutions to fight environmental crimes such as illegal fishing or deforestation, for example.

The project, founded in 2016 by Badr Idrissi, was initially funded by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation’s InnovStar program and went on to win the African Entrepreneurship Award (2017), while tech giant, Nvidia, named it one of its top ten AI startups in 2018.