Drone maker Aria Insights, formerly CyPhy Works, shuts down

Aria Insights, formerly known as CyPhy Works, has shut down, The Robot Report has learned. Danvers, Mass.-based Aria Insights raised $39 million over seven funding rounds, according to Crunchbase. The last funding came in June 2018 when it raised $4.6 million in debt financing.

The company was primarily known for its Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC) platform, a tethered drone that provided secure communication and continuous flight to customers. It relied heavily on law enforcement and military contracts. Aria was also marketing the PARC drone to oil and gas, first responders and telecommunications customers.

There are other tethered drones on the market, including Elistair in France, Hoverfly in Orlando, Fla., Drone Aviation Corp. in Jacksonville, Fla., and NTP Inc. in Crystal Lake, Ill., to name a few. In another notable drone shutdown, San Francisco-based Airware closed in September 2018 after having raised $118 million from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Google’s GV, and Kleiner Perkins.

CyPhy Works was founded in 2008 by Helen Greiner, who also co-founded iRobot in 1990. Greiner left CyPhy Works in 2017 and in June 2018 was named an advisor to the US Army for robotics, autonomous systems and AI.

CyPhy Works rebranded as Aria Insights in January 2019 to focus more on using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help analyze data collected by drones. “A number of our partners were collecting and housing massive amounts of information with our drones, but there was no service in the industry to quickly and efficiently turn that data into actionable insights,” Lance Vanden Brook, former CyPhy and current Aria CEO said at the time of the rebranding. “Moving beyond just a hardware provider, Aria is now a full-service solution that not only meets customers’ aerial needs, but also processes analytics that enable insightful decision making.”

This story is developing and will be updated accordingly.