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X'The Drone is Not Coughing on Anyone' – DroneBase Flies High in COVID-19 Lockdown
Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.

As a veteran of the Marine Corps who served as an infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan in the years after 9/11, Dan Burton saw drone technology, quite literally, take off.
Drones went from needing 55 people to fly, to as few as three pilots, to just one. Meanwhile, soldiers on the ground were thrilled to have a decentralized way to get dedicated eyes from above on missions.
Burton would ultimately translate that military experience into a business venture, fathering DroneBase Inc. in 2014 to provide professional drone services for hire. The Santa Monica-based company said it provides customers hassle-free aerial video, photos, mapping and data — and pairs drone-licensed pilots up with jobs around the world. DroneBase has raised more than $17 million, with VC backing from Union Square Ventures, Upfront Ventures, DJI Hearst Ventures and Pritzker Group, among others.
Today, the company is the largest provider of commercial drone services in the world, Burton said, "with the largest network of pilots in the world and the most kind of geographic reach."
When it comes to the coronavirus, well, "the drone is not coughing on anyone," and so the drone and its operator are therefore less impacted, unlike a typical worker in the U.S., Burton said. Pilots are often working by themselves in more isolated situations or areas.
As a result, March was DroneBase's best month of all time, with 30% in business growth from February to March. April is already on pace to beat the record by a similar amount.
"I wish it was under different circumstances," Burton said. "But we feel we're in a position to keep America running, to help with mission critical inspections of critical infrastructure" while workforces are locked down.
DroneBase is one of a handful of Southern California companies that have flourished amid a sort of second aviation-related boom, perhaps in part due to its roots here and the major presence of aviation and government-adjacent companies, from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to the Mojave Air & Space Port and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"Southern California in many ways ushered in the first aviation revolution, drone tech was born here and built here by the military (contractor) companies by and large, now (the industry's) getting built again in companies in Southern California, and maybe SF, too," Burton said.
Drone-related companies have sprouted across the region. Santa Monica-based software company AirMap started in 2015 and has built digital infrastructure to provide air traffic control for unmanned aircrafts. It has raised more than $60 million from venture capital and strategic investors and has more than 300,000 users.
FLIR Systems Inc., which is based in Arlington, Virginia, develops, manufactures and sells thermal imaging, doing much of its innovation out of its tech hub in Santa Barbara. The company is also a DroneBase investor.
Meanwhile, Auterion Government Solutions, which is also based in Southern California, is working on creating software capabilities, including small unmanned aerial systems compatible for U.S. Defense Department drones.
For DroneBase, which today has its software talk with AirMap's and uses FLIR sensors, some early jobs include helping construction sites quickly measure their inventory, or a quarry safely get video of an explosion. Burton found that companies didn't want to buy their own drones and hire their own in-house pilot. They could outsource the job instead.
The 50-person company has 65,000 pilots on its platform — or more than half of the 120,000 pilots in the U.S. who have their "107" or drone pilot license — and registers over 100,000 flights annually. The company also provides footage for news media like The Associated Press and Reuters ("We're their first phone call when they need stuff from the air," Burton said), and its pictures have been on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. DroneBase also works with content providers like Getty Images and Shutterstock to provide footage for customers.
DroneBase has a close relationship with DJI — the largest manufacturer of consumer drones worldwide — flying twice a year to its headquarters in Shenzhen, China. DJI has also attracted considerable concern from U.S. government officials and lawmakers over its data security and potential cyber vulnerabilities because of its Chinese supply chain.
In 2015, DJI and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Accel teamed up to create SkyFund, which invests in "the next generation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)." SkyFund became the first strategic investor in DroneBase, Burton said.
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
DroneBase pilots, who use their own drones, have flown in all 50 states and 70 different countries, Burton said, enabling its pilots to talk to each other through their software and creating sort of de facto standards for unmanned commercial drone flight.
The company has also done jobs like assessing office buildings, evaluating rooftop water damage that's below the surface using thermal imaging, or assessing the health of solar panels or wind turbines, which can be very dangerous to inspect up close and in person.
After Hurricane Harvey hit in Texas and Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, DroneBase got to work helping out with insurance company evaluations, helping speed up claims by weeks in areas difficult and dangerous to inspect in person. Their pilots flew drones from 5 feet to 100 feet off the roof, providing imagery that's far better than satellites, Burton said.
"This was very much a military technology that was subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer that's now becoming a commercial industry, not unlike fast-food," Burton said.
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Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter @latams. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my Signal.
Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.
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Voyage SMS Lays Off Sales Staffers, COO As Tech Downturn Continues
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
Text message marketing startup Voyage SMS has laid off more than 10% of its staff, including its chief operating officer, dot.LA has learned—as the Santa Monica-based company became the latest local venture to fall victim to worsening economic conditions.
Voyage cut eight people from its roughly 60-person workforce last week, co-founder and CEO Rev Reddy confirmed to dot.LA. Besides COO Dave Link, the cuts affected the company’s full-time sales department and some contractors, he said.
“It’s unfortunate to let people go—it’s never a fun thing,” Reddy said. “This is a multi-factor decision, but of course the macro[economic] climate affected [and] was an input in this decision.”
Reddy added that the company hopes the downsizing will be temporary and that Voyage plans to eventually hire more staff, specifically people in the Los Angeles area who have expertise in digital marketing. “We are prioritizing growth efficiency over growth at all costs,” he said.
The ongoing economic downturn has not spared the tech and venture capital sectors, spooking investors into pulling back funding and prompting a wave oflayoffs acrossthe industry. It’s a sudden change of winds of Voyage, which earlier this year raised a $10 million funding round and acquired rival SMS marketing startup LiveRecover. Voyage’s text-based marketing strategy is plugged into ecommerce platforms such as Shopify and ZenDesk—but as consumers have cut their discretionary spending to cope with rising inflation, they’re spending less on ecommerce, indirectly hindering Voyage’s business.
Link, Voyage’s outgoing COO, previously worked for LiveRecover and joined the company in February after the acquisition.
“Technically, [Link] wasn’t even an employee—it was a trial,” Reddy noted. “The title was internal and it was very much contingent upon execution of results. And candidly speaking, those results were just not hit.”
Link could not immediately be reached for comment. Other former Voyage employees confirmed on LinkedIn that they were laid off and looking for new work.
While Voyage is not yet profitable, Reddy said he believes the company is on a “path to profitability in a reasonable timeframe.” Still, he acknowledged that the startup’s backers—which include former Airbnb executive James Beshara and venture firms RiverPark and Guild Capital—will be eager to see progress if Voyage is to “attract the capital we need” moving forward.
“Limited partners now look at their portfolio and their allocations, and since the public markets have dropped so much, they look overweight in venture,” York IE managing partner Joe Raczka, whose New Hampshire-based investment firm is among Voyage’s investors, told dot.LA. “So they course-correct a little bit in terms of where their allocations are going, so you see some hesitancy.”
York IE Managing Partner Joe Raczka.
Credit: York IEStill, Raczka said York IE plans to stick with Voyage. “I think the company has a massive market that they play in [and] they have a really strong product,” he said. “I remain very confident in the business.”
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
Entrepreneur Camille Styles on Adapting... and Adapting Again
Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
Camille Styles thought she had her dream job — until she started to crave more creativity.
On this episode of Behind Her Empire, the serial entrepreneur talks about how she learned to take risks, dealing with burnout and gaining the confidence to pursue her passions.
Styles runs Camille Styles, a digital publication that grew out of a blog she created as a hobby and, over time, became a business.
Styles says she grew up adapting. As a young girl, she lived in Fort Worth Texas where her mother exposed her to art, nature and cooking. When she turned eight, her family moved to a small town in Missouri. Eventually, her family moved once more, leaving Styles to once again find her footing in a new environment.
“I can remember screaming at my parents that they were destroying my life,” she says. “But in hindsight, I am so thankful for those experiences that really started to build that sense of independence and determination to kind of find my own path and carve out a place for myself.”
That skill of adaptability helped Styles to stay afloat through her professional life — from New York, where she worked in the fashion industry as a college student, to Texas, where she got her start in event planning, to her journey into becoming an entrepreneur at 24.
“I talked to basically every small business owner that I knew, I asked for their advice and to talk to them about some of the mistakes they made,” she says.” “And I launched Camille Styles Events with one intern and myself working out of the basement of our little 1,000-square-foot bungalow.”
She didn’t stop there; “On the side, I launched a blog,” she adds.
That blog has been the focus of her career for over a decade. Throughout that time, Styles had to adapt to keep up with the rapidly-evolving internet, growing her audience, monetizing her content and refining it for social media platforms– all while being a mother to her two children.
Styles says she avoids feeling overwhelmed by doing what feels natural to her—changing.
“Instead of quitting, I pivoted and I changed,” she says, “which I think is really important when anyone feels burnout—to not just keep doing what you're doing.”
Thirteen years after starting her blog, Styles is once again changing route. Her new business hasn’t yet been named or announced, but Styles says she is learning how to build and ship physical products to customers, something she has never done before. But starting from scratch is nothing new for Styles.
“It's nice to be able to kind of let it unfold naturally and take my time with each step of the process,” she says.
Engagement and Production Intern Jojo Macaluso contributed to this post.
Hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast. Subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radioor wherever you get your podcasts.
Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
Valence, a Network for Black Professionals, Acquired by Fintech Firm Greenwood
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.
Valence, a Los Angeles-based networking platform for Black professionals, has been bought by digital banking platform Greenwood, the company announced Wednesday.
Atlanta-based Greenwood—which provides services intended to boost financial opportunities for Black and Latino people and businesses—said it will use Valence’s network to connect its community with professional development tools. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Since launching in 2019, Valence has raised more than $7 million in funding from investors including GGV Capital and Upfront Ventures. (Valence co-founder and chairman Kobie Fuller is a general partner at Upfront.) The startup has built features into its platform such as Pipeline, a database to help corporate recruiters find Black candidates, and BONDS, a mentoring program it launched last year to foster leadership skills in Black professionals.
“We’re being very targeted in how we can drive economic opportunity and wealth creation in the Black community," Fuller said in a statement. “Joining with Greenwood is a commitment to our community and accelerates our mission towards creating new paths to success for Black professionals and fuels our efforts towards closing the racial wealth gap.”
Fuller will join Greenwood’s advisory board, while Valence CEO Guy Primus will retain his role and take on the new title of vice president at Greenwood.
The deal comes after Greenwood acquired The Gathering Spot, a private membership network for the Black community, last month. The fintech company said it hopes the new acquisitions will help it build tools to close the racial wealth gap.
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.