Wingtra founders Basil Weibel, Maximilian Boosfeld and Elias Kleimann
“The world’s resources are extremely constrained and there is so much waste,” warns Maximilian Boosfeld, CEO and co-founder of Zurich-based Wingtra, the world’s largest producer of commercial vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drones. “We’re on a mission to help manage the world’s assets more sustainably and efficiently.”
That mission will expand following today’s announcement that Wingtra has raised $22 million of new investment to help the company accelerate its growth. The Series B round, finalised six years after the business’s launch in 2017, is a vote of confidence in the company’s ground-breaking technology.
Wingtra’s VTOL technology means its drones are able to operate even in the most difficult areas, including confined spaces. The drones also incorporate powerful imaging technology that enables users to survey the ground beneath in remarkable detail. The company has also developed software that enables the conversion of the data collected into 2D and 3D maps, and is working with clients in industries including construction, engineering, mining and transport.
To provide some context, Boosfeld says the most advanced satellite cameras can now produce images where each pixel accounts for around 3,250 centimetres. Wingtra’s technology, by contrast, provides images of 1-2 centimetres per pixel. “We can see a coin lying on a football pitch,” he explains.
The applications of such technology are widespread – and constantly evolving. In the US, for example, transport officials are using Wingtra’s drones to survey interstate roads and other highways, monitoring the network for wear and tear so it can be maintained and kept open. The Army Corps, meanwhile, is flying drones over the US’s dykes and levees, checking for potential issues and breaches.
Elsewhere, construction companies are using the technology to map building sites in far more detail than ever before so that projects can be planned and managed with much greater accuracy. Mining companies – and environmental groups – are using the drones to monitor extraction and land use. Private sector clients range from the mining giant Rio Tinto to building materials specialist CEMEX.
Working with such clients, Wingtra’s drones now conduct more than 100,000 flights every year, and have so far mapped out 18 million acres of land and sea, the equivalent of 13.6 million pitches.
Much of this work would traditionally have been done manually, Boosfeld explains, requiring organisations to dispatch teams of surveyors to often far-flung and inaccessible locations. “We reduce the time needed for a survey, relative to a manual approach, by 90% or more,” he says. “Users get the data they need quicker and with much more accuracy, and that enables them to make better decisions.”
It’s not just time that Wingra helps customers to save. “Our vision is to create a world where drones help people make the management of large parts of our planet more sustainable and efficient,” Boosfeld explains. Equipped with more detailed pictures and models, users will be able to scope out work far more effectively and commit only those resources that are actually needed for projects. Plus the imaging can be used to keep companies honest as they use land and other assets.
The business has grown quickly since its launch. Wingtra began life as a thesis paper for Boosfeld and co-founders Basil Weibel, Elias Kleimann and Sebastian Verling, who came together at ETH Zurich, one of Europe’s leading universities for robotics technologies. It now employs around 200 people and its drones are in use in 96 countries worldwide; sales were boosted in the summer of 2021 by the launch of the second generation of the product, which offers additional functionality and improvements.
The company’s Series B round should help it capitalise on this early success. “This is still a nascent market so we’re continuing to develop new use cases and products,” Boosfeld says. The business has plans for a major expansion in the US, as well as in other markets worldwide. It is also making a string of appointments to strengthen its leadership team in areas such as operations, sales, product development and personnel.
The $22 million of funding is coming from investors including DiamondStream Partners, EquityPitcher Ventures, Verve Ventures, Ace & Company, and the European Innovation Council Fund, ACE & Company, as well as a number of individual business angels and entrepreneurs.
“The product’s simplicity of use, its high reliability engineering, and the company’s global network of value-added resellers and service providers have positioned it to expand its leadership in the $83 billion mapping segment of the aerial intelligence market globally,” says DiamondStream Partners managing director Dean Donovan. “We look forward to helping the company in the US and Latin America, which will be increasingly important geographies as Wingtra continues to expand.”
