Redwood City-based drone manufacturer Skydio announced Monday that it raised $170 million in a Series D led by Andreessen Horowitz. The latest round places the newly minted unicorn’s valuation at just over $1 billion.
Skydio released its first drone, the R1, in 2018. The company followed that up with the Skydio 2 in 2019 and last year launched its first drone aimed specifically at enterprise customers, the X2.
The company’s new enterprise offering can be used to monitor high-flying jobs that require ladders, harnesses or even helicopters. The pandemic has sparked renewed interest in this self-flying drone technology now that many construction sites have been forced to operate under limited capacity.
“This is an important milestone for us as a company, but also for the U.S. drone industry. We’re proving that a U.S. company can lead the way in this industry through AI and autonomy,” Adam Bry, co-founder and CEO of Skydio, said in a statement. “Things are already pretty exciting, but we are just scratching the surface of what autonomous drones can do.”
Skydio’s drones are fully automated and come equipped with six fisheye navigation cameras. The company’s AI software provides the entire fleet with numerous abilities including real-time 3D mapping, object recognition, obstacle avoidance, motion prediction and more. Its technology is utilized by a myriad of construction companies, departments of transportation, energy companies and fire departments, according to the company.
“Autonomous drones will enable our aging infrastructure to be monitored much more effectively and our first responders will have greater situational awareness than ever before,” Bastiaan Janmaat, partner at Linse Capital, an investor in the round, said in a statement.
The drone manufacturer will use the additional capital to further accelerate product development and global sales expansion.
The company also plans to expand the size of its team as it continues to scale. Skydio is currently hiring for dozens of open positions across its engineering, hardware, product and operations teams, to name a few.
Additional investors Next47 and IVP also participated in the round, among others.
Skydio has now raised just over $340 million in financing to date, according to the company.
