Stratus Aviation

What do they actually do

Stratus Aviation sells a combined edge device and cloud service for airports. It captures local airfield radio (ATC/pilot) and aircraft position feeds (e.g., ADS-B/TFRs), transcribes radio in real time with aviation‑tuned models, detects anomalies like emergencies, airspace violations, and runway incursions, and pushes alerts to an operations dashboard while archiving everything in a searchable log. The hardware is designed for quick installs and can operate even with limited connectivity getstratus.ai.

Today the product is being piloted with smaller and/or untowered airports and under‑resourced ops teams; media coverage and YC materials indicate early deployments and demos rather than broad commercial rollout Y Combinator CBS.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Municipal or county managers of small/untowered airports: They lack continuous monitoring and tools to detect runway incursions or airspace violations in real time, and post‑incident fact‑finding is manual and incomplete getstratus.ai.
• Airport operations teams at under‑resourced regional airports: Limited staffing makes it hard to maintain situational awareness and coordinate responders; they need consolidated alerts and an auditable record of events getstratus.ai.
• Fixed‑Base Operators (FBOs) and ground service managers: During incidents they must quickly coordinate fuel/rescue/ground services but often lack a trustworthy, searchable record of communications and flight tracks to guide dispatch getstratus.ai.
• General aviation pilots and flight schools: Pilots worry about traffic conflicts and TFRs and want reliable transcription/recordings for training and dispute resolution; early deployments highlight pilots benefiting from alerts and archives CBS.
• Airport safety/compliance officers and investigators: They need time‑stamped evidence to investigate incidents and demonstrate compliance, but current records are fragmented; a consolidated archive of comms and flight tracks reduces uncertainty Y Combinator.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founder‑led, on‑site demo installs at nearby untowered airports, flight schools, and pilot clubs with short free/low‑cost pilots; use recorded incidents and local media to generate case studies and testimonials getstratus.ai CBS.
• First 50: Run multi‑site pilots with municipal/county airport managers and FBOs, offer bundled pricing and a clear path to paid contracts after showing faster response or clearer incident records; work with regional airport associations/state aviation offices to co‑sponsor trials and enter procurement pipelines getstratus.ai Y Combinator.
• First 100: Scale via channel partners (FBO networks, airport management firms, systems integrators), target recurring procurement cycles and grants, standardize install/support SLAs, and publish regulatory/ops case studies to convert pilots into reference accounts getstratus.ai Y Combinator.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

In the U.S., there are about 5,146 public‑use airports, of which roughly 527 are towered; that implies ~4,619 untowered public‑use airports as the core near‑term target. NPIAS lists ~3,285 GA/reliever/commercial service airports eligible for federal funding that are practical prospects FAA FY2024 FAA forecast, 527 towered FAA NPIAS.

Bottom-up calculation:

Immediate bottom‑up target: install one unit per untowered public‑use airport (~4,619 sites). Expandable set includes overlapping NPIAS GA airports (~3,285) and ~3,000 FBO locations, yielding mid‑thousands of overlapping install sites rather than additive counts FAA FY2024 FAA NPIAS NATA FBO count.

Assumptions:

• Primary unit of sale is one installation per airport site; a single install can serve multiple on‑airport stakeholders (ops, FBO, schools).
• Near‑term focus is U.S. untowered and NPIAS GA airports; large towered commercial airports follow different procurement/certification paths.
• Counts are site‑based and overlapping (airports, FBOs, schools); procurement and regulatory timelines reduce near‑term obtainable share.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Appareo: Provides aviation‑trained speech recognition and on‑device models integrated into certified avionics; overlaps on radio transcription/edge tech but focuses on cockpit systems, not airport‑ops alerting/archives.
• ADS‑B Exchange: Operates a large, unfiltered ADS‑B data network with APIs and receiver kits; overlaps on flight‑tracking and history but is a data provider rather than a radio‑transcription and ops‑workflow platform.
• INDMEX Aviation: Builds airport surface management and runway‑incursion prevention tools that fuse ADS‑B and vehicle tracking; targets control center deployments at larger airports more than single‑box solutions for untowered fields.
• VariFlight: Global aviation data platform with real‑time tracking and a runway incursion alerting product (RIPAS); overlaps on tracking/alerts but focuses on enterprise airline/airport networks, not radio‑centric edge + archive at small fields.
• Assaia: Computer‑vision ramp safety and turnaround analytics; overlaps on safety alerts/evidence but is camera‑first and aimed at commercial ramp workflows rather than radio + ADS‑B fusion for GA airports.