Intel Capital joins $10 million funding round for UAS firm

By Emily Aasand | November 06, 2014

PrecisionHawk, which uses small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAV) and cloud-based software to collect, process and analyze aerial data, has announced that Intel Capital has joined its Series B funding round of $10 million.

PrecisionHawk’s Series B funding was set up to enable PrecisionHawk to further invest in product development, engineering and talent to support a rapidly growing network of global clients and expand its sales and marketing activities.

The Series B funding round was originally announced in September and led by Millennium Technology Value Partners with Bob Young, co-founder of RedHat and founder and CEO of Lulu.com, and the Innovate Indiana Fund, and Indiana University-affiliated venture company, the company said.

“Drones hold the promise of revolutionizing many industries, some new and some very old, like farming,” said Jerry Bautista, vice president and general manager of Intel’s new business initiatives. “We are pleased to be working with PrecisionHawk, whose unique approach of combining versatile remote-sensing devices with powerful data analytics fits well with Intel’s strengths in hardware and software for the Internet of Things.”

According to PrecisionHawk, Tammi Smorynski led the investment round for Intel Capital and will serve as an advisor to the PrecisionHawk board.

“Intel Capital understands, as we do, that the UAV platform is not the product. Our product is information delivery,” said Christopher Dean, CEO of PrecisionHawk. “The expertise that this group will bring in maneuvering the highly-competitive global market combined with our information-first model and data-driven approach will be invaluable as we continue to service an increasingly large, and growing, market sector.”

PricisionHawk provides aerial data solutions to various industries including agriculture, energy, forestry, and government.

“In the time since the funding was announced, the company has launched its data management and analysis tool, Data Mapper, to automatically interpret data coming off UAV; PrecisionHawk plans to release a new model of its fixed wing UAV, the Lancaster Mark IV, in the first quarter of 2015,” said the company.