Mapping drone startup Wingtra is charting a new future after landing $22M

News Summary

  • Wingtra and AgEagle lead in the survey and mapping fields for different reasons: the eBee X is a well-industrialized and reliable fixed-wing survey and mapping drone, while WingtraOne offers a VTOL drone with top-grade image quality for coverage.Wingtra’s key differentiation is its take-off and landing technology.
  • Lack of data leads to inefficiencies, high costs and preventable CO2 emissions, but terrestrial surveying is labor intensive and can be dangerous and impossible to do without risking lives and fines when there are natural disasters like landslides.Wingtra’s drones are meant to be operational under all those conditions.
  • In total, the company’s drones make more than 100,000 flights each year and have mapped 18 million acres of land and sea.The startup’s second-generation drone, released in 2021, is called the WingtraOne Gen II and can create survey-grade 2D and 3D maps with RGB cameras.
  • 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.
  • The gathered data was used to track the migration of locust swarms, estimate crop damage, and ultimately make decisions about how to mitigate the invasion.In terms of competition, Wingtra’s best-known rivals are AgEagle’s eBee, and DJI’s Phantom 4 RTK and M300 drones.
  • The paper proposed a design for a small unmanned aerial vehicle that could take off and land vertically like a helicopter and transition to fixed-wing mode for long-range flight.While working on their thesis, the four registered Wingtra to develop and commercialize the tech.
Wingtras drones are used to perform surveying missions by organizations around the world, including NASA and the Army Corps of Engineers. Now the startup is mapping out a new expansion strategy after [+7228 chars]