by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby
Drone autonomous flight and landing specialist Wonder Robotics has announced the closing of $4 million in a seed round led by Elron Ventures alongside Besadno Investment Group.
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The funds will go towards the expansion of operation and marketing efforts, as well as the development of new technology for further applications.
The currently available beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) technology has yet to be perfected, unable to guarantee sufficiently safe autonomous drone flights and in turn resulting in difficulties for the commercialization of drones. To address these issues, Wonder Robotics created its proprietary “WonderLand” solution for accurate autonomous landings, capable of being installed on any drone. Opening up landing zones in real-time, WonderLand allows for emergency autonomous contingency landings in unprepared locations. Featuring vertical awareness and robust precision landing, Wonder Robotics’ solution offers drone safety beyond the operator’s visual line of sight, preventing collisions with people, structures and environmental obstacles.
“We are thrilled to take part in the drone revolution, by partnering with major industry players leveraging on our technology to launch their commercial multi-drone operations,” said Wonder Robotics CEO and co-founder Idan Shimon. “Since raising the seed round, we have partnered with Spright, Air Methods’ new drone division, helping it realize its mission to improve access to urgently needed medical supplies for healthcare providers.”
With their technology currently suitable for commercial package delivery, infrastructure inspection, mapping, and advanced urban mobility (UAM), Wonder Robotics plans to expand their services to include such use cases as horizontal situational awareness for navigation, obstacle detection, avoidance, and safe precision landing in the event of denied GPS.
“Wonder Robotics’ founding team are true industry experts and have the knowledge and technical expertise needed to enable a market waiting to take off, and establish WonderLand as an industry standard,” said Lauren Duke, Vice President of Business Development at Elron Ventures.
“Our investment in Wonder Robotics is perfectly aligned to our strategy of investing in domains where we can provide added value, by leveraging on our strategic partnership with Rafael and its validation platform for deep-tech ventures,” added Kobi Katz, Partner, and CTO at Elron Ventures and former VP and CIO at Rafael.
Read more about recent drone industry funding:
- Censys Funding: Over $8 Million in Series A for BVLOS Fixed Wing Drone
- Wingcopter Funding: $42 Million in Latest Round, Over $60 Million Total for Drone Delivery
- Volocopter Raises $170 Million in Series E Funding, Following $200 Million Last Year
- Flytrex Funding Round Will Let Company Expand Drone Delivery Across the US
- Public Safety Drone Market: BRINC Scores $25 Million in Series A Funding
Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam.
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