SwarmX, the Singapore-based drone startup offering the HiveMind OS, has received an undisclosed amount of private funding from one of India’s most active angel investors, TV Mohandas Pai.
T.V. Mohandas Pai, chairman of Manipal Global Education and former CFO and HR head of Infosys, has been an active investor in many startups in addition to being a high-profile philanthropist and activist for improved education in India.
SwarmX’s offering SwarmX Hive is an ambitious project which allows users to manage a fleet of drones from a single interface; they are focused on applications in security and surveillance. Founded by 22-year old Pulkit Jaiswal, a Stanford University graduate, the nearly one-year-old company has developed a weather-safe drone docking system combined with a drone operating system. SwarmX hopes that their products will make drone fleets more autonomous and easier to command.
This is the second company that Pulkit has founded; last year he was named one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Outstanding Innovators Under 35.
SwarmX’s “Hives” – docking stations – can be used in remote locations, with drones deployed in turns for 24/7 surveillance applications. The company hopes to partner with drone manufacturers to make the Hive compatible with a variety of drones.
The HiveMind operating system allows users to manage drone fleets from a tablet, desktop, or command center; HiveMind provides data storage and visualization. And using what SwarmX calls “objective-based fleet management” and machine learning algorithms, a commander can simply tell the fleet of drones what area needs to be monitored and the software figures out how to deploy the drones efficiently.
Below is what SwarmX describes as a concept video :
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.
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Pulkit Jaiswal is not a graduate of Stanford.