Reality capture specialist will invest in AI and robotics products
Reality capture specialist DroneDeploy has hit ‘break-even’ and raised $15 million in strategic funding to accelerate the development of new AI and robotics products, including fully autonomous quadruped, aerial and future humanoid systems.
“Reaching break-even means we’ve proven the sustainability of our company and are able to invest all future earnings in products and services that enable our customers,” said Mike Winn, CEO and co-founder of DroneDeploy. “Over the past decade, we’ve created the leading reality capture platform used on over 1.7 million sites in more than 180 countries. That foundation allows us to double down on the next frontier: automating analysis and decision making with AI and robotics.”
This milestone comes on the heels of the launch of Progress AI, a vision-language solution designed to deliver automated progress tracking from drone and 360 walkthrough data.
According to the company, contractors and owners are already using Progress AI to generate 95%+ accurate progress reports within minutes, at a fraction of the cost of legacy tools.
“With Progress AI, we’re getting accurate site visibility in minutes – and using that to make faster, better calls across our portfolio,” said Jon Ferguson, VP, VDC at Layton Construction. “But what’s more important is where this is going. DroneDeploy’s automation roadmap – across drones, robotics and AI – is exactly what the industry needs: fewer manual workflows, tighter risk control and data we can trust to drive critical decisions at scale, especially on complex, critical infrastructure projects like data centers.”
Over the past decade, DroneDeploy has expanded beyond its drone origins. With its acquisition of Rocos, the company established a dedicated robotics team that builds an operating system for deploying robots at scale across industrial sites, feeding DroneDeploy’s AI systems that detect delays, validate pay apps and proactively surface safety risks.
