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XColumn: Here's How the Commercial Drone Industry Can Prove Itself During the Pandemic

In the midst of the current global health crisis, the commercial drone industry is helping businesses keep essential projects on track. Drones are a significant player across a full spectrum of industries, allowing companies in insurance, construction, infrastructure, energy and others to maintain critical operations by safe, contactless solutions. In fact, Barclays estimates the use of drones will result in cost savings of $100 billion across industries.
With the foundation of the industry now maturing and in the midst of a global pandemic, I believe this is a make or break moment for drones to prove their versatility through their utility, safety, and value. Whether through integral data or taking on risky inspections, this is the moment that the commercial drone industry will fulfill its potential.
Utility: As Use Cases Grow, the Commercial Drone Industry Grows
Dan Burton is the Founder and CEO of DroneBase, the largest global drone operations company.
At DroneBase, we have seen how drones have impacted businesses across insurance, construction, real estate, energy, and media. In times of disaster and even this global pandemic, we have been fortunate to enable insurers to get claims to those in need five to six days faster, provide contractors a better, safer way to monitor their sites, and help realtors virtualize their properties to continue to conduct sales. As a result, drones have become a key part of the day-to-day operations across these industries, and continue to do so even during COVID-19.
Our customers are continuing to incorporate drones into their processes and budgets as well as find additional use cases to leverage more technology, and industry analysts are seeing the same trends. According to Tractica, the commercial drone market is experiencing steady, sustained growth and consolidation, with global revenue expected to reach $13.7 billion by 2025.
There are endless possibilities as every industry needs to maintain its assets, whether a solar farm, wind turbines, buildings, or parking lots. This is where I see sustained growth for the drone industry since enterprises should use this time to develop new use cases to efficiently and safely gather the necessary data.
Safety: Putting Humans Out of Peril
When I was just starting DroneBase, the concept of sending a flying machine to inspect anything was unheard of. Instead, humans often put themselves at risk in order to examine construction sites, roofs, or wind turbines. Not to mention, drone pilots can conduct contactless inspections since the time required on a property is minimal and nothing is physically touched by the pilot or drone.
With two feet on the ground and a bird's eye view, over 171,000 professional drone pilots are able to prevent dangerous human inspections of industrial assets. Thanks to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations such as the Part 107 program and Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC), the commercial drone industry has been able to grow and flourish.
The industry standard has been to send a human and risk their lives, which no human life is worth the chance. Drones are also providing a second safety layer during this pandemic by maintaining a safe social distance. Continuing the course of strong, helpful guidelines will push the drone industry forward and truly save lives.
A nearly empty Santa Monica, Calif. pier as seen from above during COVID-19 stay-home orders, taken by a DroneBase drone.
Courtesy of DroneBase
Value: Enabling Teams to Make Decisions Through Drone Data
As with most B2B and SaaS companies, you're providing the client with a solution. They need to quickly and easily reach a decision from the service you're providing, whatever that may be. To get companies to adopt a new technology like drones, you need to be orders of magnitude faster, safer, and more affordable - especially as companies look to cut costs and survive the pandemic.
We see two critical layers of value in the drone industry: data capture and data analysis. Enterprise customers increasingly only want to deal with one drone provider who has scalable systems across data capture and data analysis. Scaling drone capture to national, or international reach, is both a software infrastructure and a network problem. If drone operations were being viewed as a commodity before COVID-19, in the current pandemic environment, the ability to safely, quickly, and reliably operate at scale has quickly become a scarce resource. After the industry's growth and hundreds of thousands of missions flown here at DroneBase, we're more confident than ever that the drone industry can be the reliable resource we promised.
Drone data analysis is the second key layer that gets the customer to a fast, accurate decision that pulls the signal from all the noise in the captured data. Drone technology is great at capturing anomalies through imagery - a perfect fit for industrial inspections of similar assets like solar panels or wind turbines. It will be important for the drone industry to prove itself to be a valuable, accurate resource now and after we return to a more normal time.
Thanks to industry efforts, drone technology has the opportunity to make a real impact in this difficult time. Drones already provide a safer way to capture aerial data, and the contact-free inspection drones can provide is more relevant than ever to keep critical infrastructure and essential services running safely during this crisis. It's time for the commercial drone industry to prove itself.
Dan Burton is the Founder and CEO of DroneBase, the largest global drone operations company, which provides businesses with aerial information to make better, real-time decisions about their most critical assets.
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LA Tech ‘Moves’: Jam City Shakes Up Games Leaders, Viant Lures Amazon Vet
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.
Cash ecosystem integrator Sesami named Nicolas Van Erum as chief marketing officer. Van Erum joins from creative agency Sid Lee.
8minute Solar Energy, a solar and energy storage company, hired Kip Larsonas chief technology officer. Larson previously led technology teams at Amazon and Convoy.
Advertising software company Viant Technology tapped Dustin Kwan as chief product officer. Kwan was most recently general manager of advertising products at Amazon DSP.
Tamara Armstrong joined Loyola Marymount University as chief information officer and vice president for information technology services. Armstrong was most recently associate vice chancellor and CIO at the Los Rios Community College District.
TigerConnect, a health care clinical collaboration platform, hired Melissa Bellas president. Bell was previously chief growth officer for Intelligent Medical Objects.
Visual effects and animation studio DNEG tapped Disney Animation and Dreamworks veteran Erika Burton as co-president of its animation arm.
Video game developer Jam City promoted Lisa Anderson to executive vice president, from her previous role as senior vice president of studio operations. The company also hired Dan Lipa to head its casino division and King’sBrent Blazek to lead its puzzle division.
Seth Rogan’s cannabis lifestyle brand Houseplant brought in Kelly Natenshon as senior vice president of housegoods. Natenshon was most recently a consultant for home brands including California Closets, Cravings by Chrissy Teigen and Wayfair.
Cancer research organization City of Hope named Philip Okala as system president to oversee its portfolio of clinical care and research entities. Okala was previously chief operating officer at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
Law firm Perkins Coie added attorney Patrick Anding, who has previously provided legal counsel for tech companies, as a partner at its Emerging Companies & Venture Capital practice in its Los Angeles and San Diego offices.
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
This Week in ‘Raises’: Metropolis Lands $167M, Alpha Edison Seeks $340M for New Fund
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
In this week’s edition of “Raises”: a local fintech startup raised $167 million to make it much easier to pay for parking spots, while software startups in Santa Barbara and Irvine also landed large funding rounds.
Venture Capital
Metropolis Technologies, an L.A.-based fintech and “mobility commerce” platform, raised a $167 million Series B funding round co-led by 3L Capital and Assembly Ventures.
Overair, a Santa Ana-based electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft startup, raised a $145 million investment from Hanwha Group.
Invoca, a Santa Barbara-based AI software platform, raised an $83 million Series F funding round led by Silver Lake Waterman.
Performio, an Irvine-based sales commission software company, raised a $75 million growth investment led by JMI Equity.
Moleaer, a Carson-based agriculture technology startup, raised a $40 million Series C financing round led by Apollo Global Management.
C-Zero, a Santa Barbara-based clean energy company focused on natural gas decarbonization, raised a $34 million financing round led by SK Gas.
Tango, an L.A.-based platform that streamlines process documentation, raised a $14 million Series A funding round led by Tiger Global Management.
XENDEE, a San Diego-based software provider for distributed energy resources planning and operation, raised $12 million in Series A financing led by Anzu Partners.
Tellie, an L.A.-based sitebuilder for Web3creators, raised a $10 million Series A funding round from investors including Malibu Point Capital, Galaxy Digital, Osage Venture Partners, Dapper Labs, SXSW Innovation Fund and Gaingels.
Saysh, Olympic track and field athlete Allyson Felix’s L.A.-based lifestyle brand, raised an $8 million Series A funding round led by IRIS Ventures and Athleta.
Funds
Alpha Edison, a Westwood-based venture capital firm, is looking to raise $340 million for its third fund, per an SEC filing.
Kairos Ventures, a Beverly Hills-based early-stage venture capital firm investing in life sciences startups, raised $58 million for its third fund.
Raises is dot.LA’s weekly feature highlighting venture capital funding news across Southern California’s tech and startup ecosystem. Please send fundraising news to Decerry Donato (decerrydonato@dot.la).
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
Kippo, the Dating App for Gamers, Is Selling NFT ‘Land’ in Its Metaverse
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles-based startup launched a virtual world within its app called the Kippoverse, which allows users to virtually go on dates and participate in shared experiences. While Kippo started out in 2019 as a dating app catering to gamers, it has since looked to cast a wider net to include people interested in platonically hanging out with friends and meeting new people virtually.
Land you can purchase in Kippo’s metaverse.
Courtesy of Kippo
“We found that the core experience people really love is just hanging out in groups and chatting,” Kippo co-founder and CEO David Park told dot.LA. “We hear people saying they had to go out and buy battery packs because they spend eight hours a day on Kippo.”
Beginning Thursday, Kippo users can purchase 5,000 plots of “land”—non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that give them a presence in the Kippoverse—for 4 SOL each. (SOL, the native cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain platform, currently trades at more than $31.). Kippoverse landowners can then create in-app experiences like exclusive parties and get-togethers, and can also charge for admission to events that take place on their “land.”
Park compared the platform to Minecraft, the popular sandbox video game where gamers can build things in a virtual 3D world. “Minecraft is probably one of, if not the predecessor to this entire concept of the metaverse,” Park told dot.LA. “The core difference of what we’re building is that most of these platforms are gamer-focused; our core experience is the social aspect.”
There is no limit to how many plots of NFT real estate each Kippo user can purchase. The startup is keeping 500 of its 5,500 plots for itself, so that it can reserve that space for free and “cool” experiences within the app, according to Park. Kippo also plans to partner with different companies, including indie game studios, to create experiences on those plots.
While Kippo is currently only available via its mobile app, Park said the company is in the process of building a web version of its platform. Kippo is also developing an in-app currency that will allow users to more easily transact within the Kippoverse and purchase items to build out their “land.”
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Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.