Swiss drone startup Wingtra raises $22m
Wingtra, which claims to be the world’s largest producer of commercial vertical take-off and landing drones, has raised $22m to continue its expansion.
The Swiss developer raised $10m in 2019, and the Series B funding round includes the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), DiamondStream Partners, EquityPitcher Ventures, Verve Ventures, ACE & Company, John L. Steffens (founder of Spring Mountain Capital) and some of the most successful Swiss Entrepreneurs.
Wingtra manufactures professional VTOL mapping drones, develops the software for fully autonomous flights and a piloting app for reliable, fast and accurate collection and processing of aerial survey data. The drones are making it easier for surveying professionals in industries like construction and infrastructure, mining, environmental monitoring, agriculture and urban planning and land management to digitize their surrounding world.
German startup Wingcopter raised $42m to enter mass production of its delivery drones in Juje last year, bringing the total raised to $64m with key supermarket customers. Dronamics has also raised over $40m for its larger delivery drones in Europe.
- Wingcopter raises $42m for drone production
- Dronamics raises $40m for Europe’s first middle-mile drone deliveries
The funding will be used to add new camera integrations to the platform and expand the team. The company has made four industry veteran appointments as it scales the company.
Marcos Bayuelo joins as VP Product from Hexagon AB where he directed product and innovation at the mining division of Hexagon AB, while Aleksandar Kostadinov joins as VP Sales and Customer Success and brings two decades of experience building international sales alliances and introducing Leica and Hexagon products to untapped markets.
Alberto Toledo joins as GM in the US from Citrix while Marco Schicker joins as COO from Hilti AG.
“Every one of these leaders has the right experience to take Wingtra forward” said Maximilian Boosfeld, CEO and co-founder of Wingtra. “They have all successfully grown several organizations to the next level. With this funding round, the right people and market leading product we are well set to accelerate the company growth.”
The signature drone, the WingtraOne, is used by hundreds of businesses and organizations with over 100,000 flights annually, having mapped 18 million acres of land and sea.
The team released their second generation drone in 2021 that integrates RGB image sensors to create 3D models, helping make digital twins at scale such that a single flight covering over 100 hectares can be digitized at 0.5 in/px. Compared to terrestrial surveying this is up to 30 times faster and 90% cheaper.
Wingtra is a spin out from the Autonomous Systems Lab of ETH Zurich through the Wyss Zurich accelerator. It now employs close to 200 people, has offices in Zurich, Fort Lauderdale (US) and Zagreb (Croatia).
“Our vision at Wingtra is to create a world where drones help people make the management of large parts of our planet more sustainable and efficient. We reduced the cost of adopting drone assets and increased the data quality. This will help industry to plan better and, fundamentally, improve safety for humans and the environment,” said Boosfeld.
“We have built the best tool for accurate data collection and have created solutions together with our partners for a variety of use cases our customers face: As an example, our solution is used in all stages of the construction life cycle: from the concept phase (feasibility & right-of-way studies), over the design phase (bidding process, detailed design & site planning), the construction phase (progress tracking to built survey all the way to maintenance, repair and operations and the same holds true for use cases in agriculture, land management and environmental protection,” he said.
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
