Enterprise Drone Company PrecisionHawk Raises $32 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 12, 2019
  • Precisionhawk, a leading provider of drone technology for the enterprise, announced it has raised $32 million from several investors

PrecisionHawk — a leading provider of drone technology for the enterprise — announced it raised $32 million from several investors, including Millennium Technology Value Partners, Third Point Ventures, Eastward Capital Partners, and several others. 

This round of funding will fuel continued innovation in PrecisionHawk’s software tool called PrecisionAnalytics — which uses artificial intelligence/machine learning to help enterprises better utilize data collected by drones to solve business challenges. And the financing will also accelerate sales initiatives and further market expansion.

“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.”

And some of the world’s largest organizations, including 5 of the top 10 utility companies, the largest provider of communications infrastructure in the United States and the “Big Six” providers of seed and agricultural chemicals rely on PrecisionHawk to help them apply innovative drone hardware, software and services to address critical business challenges. 

Ranging from managing asset inventory to measuring the health of telecommunications towers, electricity distribution lines, or crops, PrecisionHawk’s drone-based solution delivers a flexible and cost-effective path to inspect and manage valuable assets.

The commercial drone industry has grown faster than anticipated and the FAA forecasts that it could triple between now and 2023 with an estimated 823,000 drones flying by that time. And with this round of funding, PrecisionHawk is positioned to support the next phase of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) deployments, driven by the need for improved technology that can ensure quality and consistent data collection, maintain safe operations within the existing national airspace system in the US, and organize and process drone data to make it valuable and actionable.

“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,” added Samuel 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.”

Ever since PrecisionHawk launched in 2010, it has led policy and technology development efforts to foster global adoption of commercial drone technology. And Chasen was recently appointed by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao to serve as the Chairman for the Drone Advisory Committee (DAC), a group established by the Federal Aviation Administration to advise on key challenges and opportunities for drones in the US airspace.

“Investments such as this one underscore the tremendous potential of the UAS industry to deliver new applications and services across business sectors,” explained Brian Wynne, President and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). “The demand for UAS technology is remarkable and demonstrates the great confidence investors have in a solid and growing market for years to come.”

PrecisionHawk is going to continue to lead the way, assisting regulators, and encouraging industry participants to adopt innovative policies and technologies that can support not only today’s drone use cases, but those of tomorrow.

So far, PrecisionHawk has raised over $130 million from leading venture capital firms including Millennium Technology Value Partners and Third Point Ventures with strategic investments from enterprise customers and partners, including Comcast Ventures, DuPont, NTT Docomo, and Yamaha Motor.