April 22, 2016

Following its Series B fundraise in the later half of 2014, drone and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology firm, PrecisionHawk, announced it has closed on an $18 million Series C. The round included new investors – Verizon Ventures, NTT Docomo Ventures, Yamaha Motor, and a subsidiary of USAA. The oversubscribed round also included previous investors – Intel Capital, Millennium Technology Value Partners, and Indiana University’s Innovate Indiana Fund.

This round brings PrecisionHawk’s total funding to $30 million to date, and will be used to support the expansion of the company’s low-altitude safety infrastructure, its terrestrial data services, and to drive continued product development.

“Since the start of our investments in PrecisionHawk, we have watched this company literally shape a new industry,” Ken Green, managing director of the Innovate Indiana Fund and a PrecisionHawk director told IUPUI Newsroom. “Its innovative technology is being applied in many ways, as demonstrated through the companies coming on board.”

Founded in 2010 with Lancaster, its initial fixed-wing agricultural drone which gathered aerial data from sensors installed by farmers across fields, however, the company has grown to offer services and to create platforms that can help farmers and other users gain more comprehensive data analysis and insight.

“Building and selling planes will arguably be the smallest part of our business. Our biggest opportunity and the faster growing part of our business is the platform we built for aerial data services,” PrecisionHawk CEO, Bob Young told Tech Crunch.

This funding will help support the acceleration of PrecisionHawk’s DataMapper platform – a terrestrial data analysis tool which accepts data from all drone systems, but which is being configured to combine data from aerial satellites and manned aviation in the future, giving farmers and other users the ability to manage, analyze, and compare all incoming data from all sources on a single platform.

Over the course of 2016, the funding will also be used to support the development and commercialization of LATAS – PrecisionHawk’s low-altitude traffic and airspace safety platform. The U.S. already requires mandatory registration of drone owners on a national database, but as Tech Crunch points out, such a registration system will not prevent collisions or irresponsible usage. Acting as an air-traffic control platform for drones, LATAS can allow for the safe, rapid integration of drones into national airspace.

Commenting on the round, PrecisionHawk CEO Bob Young said in a company statement, “Individuals and organizations across the world need better and more accurate data to manage the resources of our planet, and we are delighted to receive such a strong level of support and confidence from this group of investors to help us build out a platform for the industry.”