AEROSPACE
Ascendance: Leveraging Cirium fleet data for actionable market intelligence
By leveraging Cirium’s fleets data, Ascendance has been able to significantly improve its understanding of the market, enabling it to derive the most effective commercial strategy informed by a complete view of the global fleet.
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Ascendance is a start-up on a mission to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable aviation with hybrid-electric technology. Based in Toulouse, France, it is developing two products: Sterna, a hybrid-electric propulsion system for UAV/drones and aircraft, and Atea, a VTOL aircraft for regional applications (400 km range) powered by Sterna.
Business Challenge
As a propulsion system provider and an aircraft manufacturer, Ascendance’s commercial team need to understand the market landscape to identify opportunities for their technology. They need a clear view of the global fleet to understand the addressable market for both new aircraft and candidate aircraft for hybrid-electric retrofits.
The team developed a data model to forecast market potential and identify target markets. However, they found sourcing reliable fleet data difficult and time-consuming; publicly available sources were disseminated, inconsistently structured, lacking detail and often out of date.
The lack of reliable data was particularly acute for the rapidly evolving Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) segment in which Ascendance operates. This held back the model’s ability to forecast demand for either product.
The Cirium Solution
For market intelligence of the global fleet, Ascendance turned to Cirium’s propriety fleet data – the aviation industry’s most comprehensive fleets dataset. Maintained to provide reliable, timely and granular data, it includes data on AAM orders and commitments, giving Ascendance a critical view of the competitive landscape at a strategic level.
Fleets Analyzer gives the commercial team the ability to filter the data for a snapshot of fleets and market segments. This gives them a powerful tool to understand the prospective partner’s fleet and quickly focus on the next steps of a potential partnership.
Results
By leveraging Cirium’s fleets data, Ascendance has been able to significantly improve its understanding of the market, enabling it to derive the most effective commercial strategy informed by a complete view of the global fleet.
Armed with a trustworthy view of key market segments and the wider competitive landscape, the business has been able to make a significant leap forward in the quality and detail of analysis. Integrating detailed data into the model has produced more robust forecasts and projections, leading the company to justify and update its milestones.
Ascendance’s commercial team have benefitted from usable market intelligence and significant time savings. The team has been able to cut the time spent on ad-hoc analysis in half, thanks to less time spent collating and analyzing data, and are able to engage with intelligence to progress quickly to meaningful sales and partnership conversations.
Ascendance’s commercial team has halved the time spent on data analysis.
“Cirium data has enabled Ascendance to make a significant leap in the quality and detail of its market analysis. Fleets Analyzer has given our team a powerful tool to proactively identify growth opportunities, generating more commercial leads and market traction.
“Working with the Cirium team is an excellent experience; they have been clear and responsive at every stage of our relationship, and we appreciate their transparency and honesty.”
Vincent Joséphine, Sales & Marketing Lead, Ascendance
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About Ascendance
Founded in 2018 by Jean-Christophe Lambert, Thibault Baldivia, Clément Dinel and Benoît Ferran, Ascendance is a start-up that has set itself the mission of decarbonizing aviation. Established in 2020 in the heart of Toulouse, the European aeronautics capital, it is developing two products: an innovative hybrid electric propulsion system called Sterna and a vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL) powered by Sterna, called Atea.
Sterna is the hybrid propulsion technology which unlocks cleaner aviation. STERNA’s innovative electric architecture and embedded intelligence allow for simultaneous use of several energy sources. STERNA is modular and scalable, so it can accommodate a thermal module or new hydrogen solutions, helping drive energy transformation in the aviation industry. The company has filed several patents on these technologies.
Atea is the future of regional aviation and will be the first aircraft powered by STERNA. With a capacity of 4 to 5 seats, this vertical take-off and landing aircraft is designed as a low-carbon, quiet and efficient alternative to the helicopter (up to -80% carbon emissions). With its 400-km endurance, a speed of at least 200 km/h, and reduced noise emissions, it perfectly addresses a regional & decentralized use in passenger transportation, tourism, medical emergencies, logistics and surveillance.
