Press Release: Wingbits Raises $5.6M to Revolutionize Rewards-Based Plane Tracking with DePIN Technology
January 21, ‘25
Stockholm, Sweden – 21st January 2025 – Wingbits, the Web 3.0 startup, has raised $5.6 million in a round led by Borderless Capital and Bullish Capital, with participation from Spartan Group, Tribe Capital, Antler, SNZ and Heartcore. This brings its total funding to $9.2 million as it pioneers the first decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) for aviation.
“Wingbits is a definitive use case for DePIN. They are on track to be the largest airplane tracking network on earth thanks to their well-designed incentives and execution,” said Álvaro Gracia, Partner at Borderless Capital.
This latest funding comes just 6 months after Wingbits’ $3.5 million seed round, backed by leading investors Borderless Capital, Tribe Capital and Antler. Since then, the startup founded by Robin Wingardh and Alex Lungu has achieved rapid growth, expanding its network six times faster than any other flight tracking system in history.
“We are excited to partner with the Wingbits team, who in less than 18 months have already begun to disrupt a flight tracking industry with huge proven demand by leveraging blockchain technology to incentivize the supply of higher quality, lower latency data,” said Alasdair Foster, CEO of Bullish Capital.
In its first year on Solana testnet, the Wingbits network has scaled to 2,100 active stations (users), tracking 120,000 unique flights per day across 85 countries. Additionally, there are over 2,000 pre-orders for the custom-engineered DePIN hardware, which was produced in partnership with GEODNET.
“I believe Wingbits has a strong chance to become a leader in their market compared to many other DePIN projects. Based on my research, they also have one of the most unique supply-side dynamics, tapping into hundreds of thousands of existing flight tracking enthusiasts around the world. Balanced strength in both demand and supply is critical for the success of DePIN projects," said Evan Park, investor at Tribe Capital.
A Bold Solution to a Broken Model
Flight tracking, a cornerstone of the $6 trillion aviation industry, has long relied on a global network of volunteers who install home antennas to collect flight data. Companies like FlightRadar24 and FlightAware sell this data to airports, airlines and other organisations to support their global operations, generating hundreds of millions in revenue, while volunteers themselves receive nothing in return.
“The current model isn’t just exploitative – it’s inefficient,” says Wingbits CEO and co-founder Robin Wingardh. “We’re setting a new standard for transparency and collaboration in aviation. It’s about building a network that works better than the traditional alternatives, while treating contributors as valued stakeholders, who are the backbone of aviation data infrastructure.”
Wingbits is the first flight tracking network to directly compensate contributors, incentivizing better hardware placement, data quality and coverage in global blind-spots. Like Helium with its vast network of 5G hotspots, Wingbits leverages Solana’s blockchain network to reward its contributors with its native $WINGS tokens directly.
At the heart of Wingbits’ network is its groundbreaking DePIN hardware. Manufactured by industry leaders, these devices will be the first cryptographically-secured ADS-B receivers, ensuring data is verifiable and reliable, addressing long-standing concerns about faked data and inaccurate reports in the aviation industry.
With air traffic projected to double by 2040 and the drone industry expected to surpass $55 billion by 2030, reliable, scalable tracking systems will become vital. With the latest funding, Wingbits plans to accelerate device deployment, expand its network into underrepresented regions, and refine its tokenomics as they prepare for their upcoming mainnet launch.
“We recognized the commitment and ambition of Robin and Alex from the very start of their growth journey. This funding round reflects the quality of the technology they are building, the level of innovation in their business model and the speed at which they are scaling. The founders set out to create the world’s best flight tracking network and the impact Wingbits has already had on the market shows that they are delivering on that vision already,” commented Oscar Westergard, Partner at Antler.
“The flight tracking industry is prime for disruption by Wingbits. Being built on Web3 rails allows Wingbits to incentivize users to provide top quality ADS-B feeds with the most reliable up-time and the lowest latency. The nature of the industry being run by hobbyists, coupled with the well-designed incentive mechanism that accounts for the concentration of coverage in the various regions, allows Wingbits to scale quickly in a targeted way,” added Lionel Pek, investor at Spartan Group.
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For media enquires, please contact savannah@wingbits.com
About Borderless Capital
Since 2018 Borderless has made over 250 investments in Web3, playing an integral role in the development of some of the top projects in the Blockchain ecosystem.
For media inquiries, please contact: hello@borderlesscapital.io
About Bullish Capital
Bullish Capital is an investment company which offers strategic capital, industry expertise, and an extensive network of resources to support initiatives that connect conventional finance with the revolutionary possibilities of the digital economy. Part of the Bullish Group, Bullish Capital operates within a larger ecosystem that also includes the Bullish Exchange - digital asset spot and derivatives trading services that utilize high-performance central limit order matching and proprietary market making technology to deliver deep liquidity and tight spreads within a compliant framework. The business is licensed by BaFin and the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. Additionally, Bullish Group includes CoinDesk, an award-winning media, events, indices and data business servicing the global crypto economy. For more information on Bullish, please visit bullish.com and follow LinkedIn and X.
For media inquiries, please contact: media@bullish.com
About Tribe Capital
Tribe Capital is a venture capital firm focused on capturing a perpetual edge in venture and crypto using data science. The team is made up of investors, engineers and scientists who use data to model venture-backed private companies. The San Francisco-based firm has approximately $1.7 billion in assets under management and has made notable investments in Apollo.io, Carta, Docker, Kraken, Instabase, Relativity Space, and Shiprocket.
For media inquiries, please contact: hello@tribecap.co
About Antler
Antler is the world’s day zero investor that inspires, enables, and invests in visionary founders everywhere. Founded on the belief that talent is everywhere but opportunity is not, we remove the barriers to entrepreneurship so more people can launch sustainable businesses that solve meaningful problems, drive innovation, and improve lives. We partner with the most early-stage entrepreneurs around the world through our residencies in 27 cities across six continents—Austin, Berlin, Bangalore, Jakarta, London, New York, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, and beyond. As an extension of our founders’ team, our global community backs them from the beginning and keeps backing them with team formation, deep business model validation, initial capital, global scaling, and follow-on funding, with a personal passion that goes beyond traditional investing. To date, we have brought more than 1,200 startups into existence that are delivering paradigm-shifting solutions across all industries, with the goal of backing more than 6,000 by 2030.
For media inquiries, please contact: press@antler.co
About Spartan Group
Founded in 2017, Spartan Group is a leading player in the Web3 space. We are one of the most active venture investors and have backed some of the leading crypto companies and networks. We are also a leader in Web3 M&A deals and capital raises, leveraging our track record of working with world-class teams, deep expertise of the crypto industry, and unparalleled network to create collective value with exceptional founders.
For media inquiries, please contact: info@spartangroup.io
About Heartcore
Heartcore are crypto-native investors who focus on products that push the space forward and drive mainstream adoption. Our team combines over 10 years of native Web3 investing experience with 15 years of investing and working with Web2 unicorns across various sectors.
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