Israeli startup Dronomy, a software company that builds knowledge into construction projects through analysis of data collected by drones, has raised funding from Mitsui Fudosan's corporate venture capital fund 31VENTURES. The company's existing investors, including Battery Ventures, Lool Ventures and Oryzn Capital, have also participated this funding round.
No financial details were disclosed about this financing round. In September 2015, Dronomy raised $1.5 million. The Tel Aviv based company was founded by CEO Ori Aphek and VP R&D Dr. Guy Raz.
Aphek said, "We are consistently receiving extraordinary feedback from customers who experience what our solution can do for them. This is now ratified by one of the world's largest players in our market. Our ability to make consumer drones fly low and close in construction sites, capture the right visual data, translate it into knowledge, and appropriately deliver this knowledge is what makes us different."
Dronomy captures unique and frequent project data using autonomous drones, and analyzes it into actionable information that is shared over the cloud to all relevant project stakeholders.
"It did not take us long to realize the outstanding business potential of Dronomy, which led us to making our first-ever investment in an Israeli technology company," explains Akira Sugawara, General Manager of 31VENTURES. "The construction market, its challenges and the opportunities it encapsulates are well known to us. We were impressed to see how Dronomy and its remarkable team understand and address these challenges."
This funding round will allow the company to launch its solution on international markets and to ramp-up its customer acquisition, starting in the first quarter of 2017.
The construction market is estimated by the World Economic Forum at almost $10 trillion, while drone-based solutions for the construction market are estimated by Goldman Sachs to accumulate to over $11 billion in the next five years. Construction companies, developers and sub-contractors are starting to realize the benefits of using unique technological solutions as part of their business processes to reduce ever-occurring project delays, cost overruns and disputes, which can account for a significant percentage of a project's overall costs.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 11, 2016
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