Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) startup Flytrex has raised $8 million in funding to continue scaling up its production and R&D capabilities.
The newly raised funding complements a grant awarded from the Israel Innovation Authority, bringing the total of $9.3 million raised. In total, Flytrex has raised $20.3 million in funding. This latest round was led by Benhamou Global Ventures and btov.
"Our mission is to make widespread on-demand drone delivery the rule rather than the exception — and this funding is a vote of confidence from our investors that we are indeed on the way to making this a reality," said Yariv Bash, CEO and co-founder of Flytrex. "Our systems are in the final stages of receiving key certification from the Federal Aviation Administration, helping us launch the drone delivery revolution across the U.S."
Flytrex had a busy 2020, launching a pilot project with Walmart to deliver select grocery and household items from the stores to residents in Fayetteville, North Carolina. In the project, Flytrex’s autonomous drones were controlled over the cloud using a smart dashboard and the goal was to gain insight into the customer and associate experience including picking up and packing the drone to takeoff and final delivery.
Also in 2020, Flytrex began another project in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to deliver medicine and packages to consumers in the region to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. While many believe drone delivery will be a key factor to help fight future pandemics, as the COVID-19 crisis raged on, drones became a larger part of the effort to contain the virus through spraying areas with disinfectant, an increase in drone delivery of medicine and even COVID tests and spreading information about social distancing and virus hotspots.
