Malaysia’s Aonic raises $10 M to expand its domestic drone technology internationally

Aonic, a drone technology company based in Malaysia that operates throughout Southeast Asia, announced that it has raised an additional $10 million.

Through its Emerging Fund Managers’ Program, Jelawang Capital, Malaysia’s National Fund-of-Funds, supports Kairous Capital, a regional private equity and venture capital firm, which is leading the Series A funding round.

The investment will boost R&D, expand Aonic’s services, software, and drones manufactured in Malaysia, and hasten the company’s regional and global expansion.

“Aonic is scaling a proven system,” said Cheong Jin Xi, Founder and CEO of Aonic, in a statement on Wednesday. “We’ve spent years building the engineering, manufacturing, and operational foundations to support real-world, field- ready operations. This funding enables us to expand globally with the same level of consistency and reliability we’ve achieved in Southeast Asia.”

By tackling enduring traditional issues like labor-intensive and dangerous work, Aonic offers complete drone solutions to modernize Southeast Asia’s industrial and agricultural sectors.

Aonic helps farmers boost productivity and yields by taking the place of manual spraying. Aonic’s agricultural drones have been demonstrated to increase farmers’ income by 50%, increase farm output by about 54%, and reduce water use for spraying by about 75% when compared to manual methods, according to internal performance data from participating farms.

Aonic has developed a fully integrated internal ecosystem to support this at scale. The company has complete control over product performance, costs, and roadmap because it designs, engineers, and manufactures its own drones and proprietary software in-house.

In addition to technology, Aonic’s larger ecosystem helps farmers with agri-drone financing, training, and agri-input retail, all of which are intended to reduce adoption barriers and provide scalable and sustainable impact across industrial and agricultural operations.

Long after deployment, Aonic offers responsive, on-the-ground support thanks to its robust after-sales service network of more than 50 3S (Sales, Service, Spare Parts) centers throughout Southeast Asia.

“We have been searching for transformative food and agri-technology for a long time, and Aonic is a rare Malaysia-based company that can deliver across Southeast Asia at scale,” said Adrian Hia, Partner at Kairous Capital. “The team pairs deep technical capability with exceptional execution and financial discipline, bringing measurable outcomes for farmers.”

Since 2022, Aonic’s revenue has increased to over $60 million annually at a triple-digit CAGR. Additionally, the business has been profitable since 2023, which is indicative of its scalable operating model and disciplined execution.