Enhanced Radar Raises $7M to Modernize Air Traffic Systems
Enhanced Radar (enhancedradar.com), the startup building AI-powered systems for air traffic control, has raised $7 million in seed funding led by Initialized Capital. Pioneer Fund, United Airlines Ventures, Y Combinator, Decisive Point, and DCVC also participated, along with angel investors including Sky Dayton, Adrian Aoun, James Tamplin, and Oliver Cameron.
The company, which came out of Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch, uses proprietary AI to transcribe and analyze millions of daily air traffic control transmissions.
Its core offering is enterprise software that provides actionable insights for greater efficiency and decision-making
at airports and airlines. Enhanced Radar also operates a consumer-facing ATC app that has gone viral on social media.
Enhanced Radar was founded by Eric Button and Kristian Gaylord, both pilots.
Button is a former professional pilot with 2,200 hours of flight time and a Gulfstream 280 type rating, and previously co-founded Contrast, a fintech startup acquired by PublicSq.
Gaylord is an FAA Private Pilot who previously built embedded computer vision for satellites at Pilot AI (also acquired) and worked in high-frequency trading in Rust.
The startup now has infrastructure installed at over 80 airports across North America.
With each installation, the company's AI model gains new training materials and expands in scope.
The company recently released Y4, a new model
designed to handle aviation-specific challenges like choppy audio, rushed speech, and accents, with accuracy greater than 98 percent.
The new funding will go toward expanding that nationwide footprint and growing the team. Enhanced Radar is hiring across software, hardware, sales, and business development in San Francisco.
The air traffic control system in the United States has come under increased scrutiny in recent years.
Controllers operate under enormous cognitive load, often within under-resourced organizations struggling with outdated equipment, and the airspace system needs advanced AI models to reduce the risk of human errors.
Enhanced Radar's approach is to build a multi-layered safety net that supports controllers rather than replaces them, offering decision-making augmentation and real-time error detection.
Though the company's initial focus is on improving efficiency, Button has said it will assist with safety-critical functions in the future.