Drone data scanning company Skycatch announces a $25M raise

Skycatch today announced a $25 million raise, led by ADB Ventures and Wavemaker. Founded in 2013, the Bay Area-based company provides centimeter-accurate 3D scanning services, primarily for construction sites and mining operations.

The service has already been rolled out in a number of different locations around the world — with north of 10,000 sites, according to founder and CEO Christian Sanz. The list includes Chile, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Australia, Canada, the U.S., Indonesia, China, Philippines, Thailand and Japan. In particular, the company is seeking to work with sites where connectivity is limited.

“The process of generating high-precision, centimeter-accurate data is extremely difficult. It typically is owned by the laser scanning market,” says Sanz. “Drones, in general, out of the box are not able to achieve that. We saw the true value prop for Skycatch is operating in edge environments where there’s no connection to internet. That’s where we saw the most demand, initially. That is typically mining companies, operating in all of these remote regions.”

The company’s technology works with off-the-shelf drones, including ones manufactured by DJI. It provides the 3D mapping software, as well as a base station with an edge processor, known as the Edge 1. Skycatch is also working with off-the-shelf lidar companies to help capture data in more difficult environments, including underground for mining operations.

“Asian Development Bank (ADB) aims to play a catalytic role to enable technology in infrastructure projects, which result in reduced carbon footprints and increased safety and operational efficiency,” ADB’s Daniel Hersson said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “The enterprise-grade Skycatch technology for capturing, processing and analyzing high accuracy 3D drone data is a critical part to accomplishing that mission.”

The funds will go toward expanding the 50-person company’s sales and marketing team — both of which have been fairly small portions of the company’s overall headcount.

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