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Skydio

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Skydio
Company typePrivate
Industry
Founded2014; 10 years ago (2014)
FounderAdam Bry, Abe Bachrach and Matt Donahoe
Headquarters
Redwood City, California
,
United States
Key people
ProductsUnmanned aerial vehicles
Websitewww.skydio.com

Skydio is an American manufacturer of drones headquartered in San Mateo, California. In March 2021, the company became a unicorn, becoming the first US drone manufacturer to exceed $1 billion in value.[1][2]

History

Skydio was founded in 2014 by Adam Bry, Abe Bachrach and Matt Donahoe, all of whom had studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[3]

Adam Bry and Abe Bachrach were in the robust robotics program, researching ways to build aircraft that could fly themselves without GPS, culminating in a fixed wing drone with a laser range finder that autonomously navigated its way around a parking lot. In 2012, Bry and Bachrach helped develop autonomous-control algorithms that could calculate a plane's trajectory and determine its “state” — its location, physical orientation, velocity, and acceleration.[4] After graduation, in 2012, Bry and Bachrach took jobs in industry, landing at Google's Project Wing an autonomous drone project for Google. Seeing a need for autonomy in drones, in 2014, Bry, Bachrach, and Donahoe founded Skydio to fulfill a vision that drones can have enormous potential across industries and applications.[5] Early investors included venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz.[6]

Skydio X2 drone
The Skydio X2 uses the same Skydio Autonomy engine with 6 navigation cameras located on the outside of the drone but now with a thermal camera,[7] 35 min flight time, range, and foldable.The X2 platform offers a 14° to 109° F temperature operating range. Additionally this drone has increased supply chain security with its NDAA[8] compliant certification allowing it to be used at the Federal level.

In 2018, the company introduced its first consumer product with the Model R1, which cost $2,500. The Skydio 2 model came out a year later and was priced much lower at $1,349.[9] This drone operated autonomously and included processors from Nvidia.[10] In 2020, Skydio announced it would design a drone for military and corporate use, which would be named the X2.[9]

In February 2022 Skydio won the US Army SRR program production agreement. This contract has a base year value of $20.2 million, guaranteeing that soldiers receive access to the world's most advanced autonomous drone technology.[11] Skydio continues to design, assemble, and support[12] their products in the US.

By March 2021, Skydio had raised $340 million from various venture capitalists and exceeded an enterprise value of $1 billion.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b "Autonomous drone maker Skydio raises $170M led by Andreessen Horowitz". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  2. ^ "American company Skydio becomes first U.S. drone company to reach $1 billion valuation". CNBC. 2021-03-11. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  3. ^ Manjoo, Farhad (13 February 2018). "The Autonomous Selfie Drone Is Here. Is Society Ready for It?". The New York Times.
  4. ^ "The Autonomous 'Selfie Drone'". cacm.acm.org. Retrieved 2021-09-16.
  5. ^ "The autonomous "selfie drone"". MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2021-09-16.
  6. ^ Popper, Ben (2015-01-15). "Meet the tiny startup building self-navigating drones". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  7. ^ "Skydio X2 FLIR Thermal Drone Palette Options". www.skydio.com. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
  8. ^ "DIU's first wave of policy compliant commercial drones". www.diu.mil. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
  9. ^ a b Vincent, James (2021-03-01). "US drone firm Skydio valued at $1 billion as government freezes out Chinese competition". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  10. ^ "Inception Spotlight: New Skydio 2 Drone Powered by NVIDIA Jetson". NVIDIA Developer Blog. 2019-10-01. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  11. ^ McNabb, Miriam (2022-02-09). "Skydio Wins US Army SRR Program Production Agreement". DRONELIFE. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  12. ^ "History - Skydio Inc". www.skydio.com. Retrieved 2022-10-19.


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