Wingtra lands $22 million funding for commercial VTOL drones
29 Mar 2023
Executive Change
Photo Credit, all images: Wingtra
Wingtra (Zurich, Switzerland), producer of commercial vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drones has announced a $22 million series B funding round as the company accelerates its operations globally. The funding round included DiamondStream Partners, EquityPitcher Ventures, Verve Ventures, the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), ACE & Company, John L. Steffens (founder of Spring Mountain Capital) and several successful Swiss entrepreneurs.
Wingtra manufactures professional mapping drones, develops the software for fully autonomous flights and the WingtraPilot app operates the combined solution for reliable, fast and accurate collection and processing of aerial survey data. The drones are meant to make surveying easier for professionals in industries like construction and infrastructure, mining, environmental monitoring, agriculture, and urban planning and land management.
The company’s signature drone, the WingtraOne, is a glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) aerial drone solution with a VTOL design so it can take off and land almost anywhere, even in confined spaces or on rough terrain, enabling widespread data collection. It is currently being used by hundreds of businesses and organizations including CEMEX, Rio Tinto, Army Corps of Engineers and Kenya Red Cross spread across 96 countries. The drones conduct more than 100,000 flights annually, having mapped 18 million acres of land and sea (the equivalent of 13.6 million football fields).
The team successfully released its second generation drone in 2021, the WingtraOne Gen II, which offers optimal survey grade 2D and 3D maps to help data users make better decisions. It integrates high-quality sensors in RGB cameras to create 3D models to aid in digital twin development at scale such that a single flight covering over 100 hectares can be digitized at 0.5 inch/pixel. Compared to terrestrial surveying, Wingtra claims that this is up to 30 times faster and 90% cheaper.
Wingtra is the brainchild of four young entrepreneurs Maximilian Boosfeld (CEO), Basil Weibel (VP Growth), Elias Kleimann (CFO) and Sebastian Verling (lead engineer) which was created in the Autonomous Systems Lab of ETH Zurich. The company started life as a thesis paper for the university and became a startup at the Wyss Zurich accelerator to an internationally expanding scale-up business and, today, a commercial VTOL drone manufacturer. Wingtra employs close to 200 people, and has offices in Zurich, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Zagreb, Croatia.
“Our vision at Wingtra is to create a world where drones help people make the management of large parts of our planet more sustainable and efficient,” Maximilian Boosfield, CEO and co-founder of Wingtra, says. “We reduced the cost of adopting drone assets and increased the data quality. This will help industry to plan better and, fundamentally, improve safety for humans and the environment.”
“We have built the best tool for accurate data collection and have created solutions together with our partners for a variety of use cases our customers face,” he continues. “As an example, our solution is used in all stages of the construction lifecycle: from the concept phase (feasibility and right-of-way studies), over the design phase (bidding process, detailed design and site planning), the construction phase (progress tracking to built survey all the way to maintenance, repair and operations). And the same holds true for use cases in agriculture, land management and environmental protection.”
Alongside the funding round, Wingtra has reiinforced its senior leadership with five new industry veteran appointments:
Marcos Bayuelo joins as VP product from Hexagon AB (Stockholm, Sweden) where he directed product and innovation at the mining division of Hexagon AB.
Aleksandar Kostadinov joins as VP sales and customer success and brings two decades of experience building international sales alliances and introducing Leica and Hexagon products to untapped markets.
Alberto Toledo joins as general manager in the U.S. from Citrix where revenue lept from $4 million to $25 million in just three years.
Corinna de Maddalena joins as VP people having led HR functions in leading tech companies for more than 15 years.
Marco Schicker joins as COO from Hilti AG (Liechtenstein, Germany) where he handled the transformation of global teams and brings insights and strengths as a three-time founder.
Significant new features, camera integrations and product launches to the VTOL drone can be expected in upcoming years.
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