PrecisionHawk helps businesses use drone data to solve business challenges. | Credit: PrecisionHawk
PrecisionHawk, a North Carolina-based drones-as-a-service company, closed a $32 million Series E round. PrecisionHawk has raised more than $136 million to date. It will use the funding to continue developing its hardware and software offerings.
PrecisionHawk has customers in a variety of industries, including agriculture, energy, and telecommunications. Some of its applications for agriculture include counting crops, quantifying plant health and maximizing yield. It said another leading application is inspecting telecommunications towers and electricity distribution lines.
PrecisionHawk offers an integrated platform of drone and sensor hardware and flight and analytics software services. The data that is collected by the company’s drones, which include a BirdsEyeView FireFLY6 Pro, DJI Matrice 200 V2, DJI Matrice 600 Pro and others, and is turned into actionable intelligence using the company’s PrecisionAnalytics software tool.
“This is an exciting time at PrecisionHawk and the commercial drone industry overall as adoption of drones continues to grow at exceptional rates,” said Michael Chasen, CEO of PrecisionHawk. “Our unique software and services deliver incredible value to our customers, equipping them with the highest level of aerial intelligence to meet their current and future asset management and operating needs. We are pleased with this latest round of funding which will help us better address this surging demand, particularly in the energy and agriculture markets, and lead us into sustained profitability and growth.”
Related: Exyn drone maps inactive mine on the fly
Chasen was recently appointed by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao to chair the FAA’s Drone Advisory Committee. The Series E round was led by Millennium Technology Value Partners, Third Point Ventures, Eastward Capital Partners, and other investors.
“We are excited to continue our support of PrecisionHawk during this next phase of its growth. The feedback from customers has been very promising and we believe PrecisionHawk is well positioned to capitalize on the huge market opportunity ahead of it,” said Sam Schwerin, co-founder and Managing Partner of Millennium Technology Value Partners. “PrecisionHawk’s powerful PrecisionAnalytics software applies the latest generation of artificial intelligence to aerial data unlocking the data’s potential to accelerate and optimize work for the enterprise.”
While the commercial drone bubble has certainly burst, this should be a sign that investors are still positive about the future of the industry. Here are some other notable commercial drone-related investments that occurred during 2019.
Notable Drone Investments of 2019
| Company | Amt. (M$) | Round | Month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zipline | 190 | May | |
| Anduril Industries | 127 | Series B | September |
| DroneDeploy | 35 | Series D | November |
| Aerodyne Group | 30 | Series B | October |
| Clobotics | 22 | pre-Series B | August |
| Exyn Technologies | 16 | Series A | July |
| Pensa Systems | 10 | Seed | November |
Tell Us What You Think!