Why its hot: HummingBird Technologies is a London-based company, which uses drones with customised sensors as well as a satellite to gather data and imagery that will help in precision agriculture. The company uses advanced machine learning algorithms and computer vision in order to provide information on crop health. Their products include the detection of crop diseases, nutrient optimisation and more.
Why its hot: Accelerated Dynamics has developed an operating platform to simplify the management of multiple drones. Its software solution lets farmers use UAV vehicle fleets sans any training. Accelerated Dynamics’ platform integrates IoT devices such as moisture sensors and irrigation devices to monitor crops at all times and ensure farmers increase the quality and quantity of their produce.
Avular (Netherlands)
Founders: Ramon Haken, Albert Maas, Gerbert van de Ven
Funding: €2 million
Valuation: €6 million – €9 million
Founded year: 2014
Why its hot: Avular has developed a modular drone platform called Aerial Curiosity, which lets users easily connect new sensors and programs. It comprises two components – a modular platform and software layer. With the modular platform, it is possible to assemble the drone quickly for multiple use cases while the software layer shortens the development time.
BioCarbon Engineering (UK)
Founders: Irina Fedorenko, Lauren Fletcher, Martin Tengler, Matthew Ritchie, Susan Graham
Funding: €2.3 million
Valuation: $10 million – $15 million
Founded year: 2014
Why its hot: BioCarbon Engineering operates with the goal to plant 500 billion trees by 2060 with the drones. The drone technology used by this company can survey the environment and disperse seeds at a high-speed across massive areas. This drone technology is touted to be 10 times more effective than traditional hand-planting and is claimed to plant nearly 10,000 trees in a day.
PAINTEC SL (Spain)
Founders: Cristian Villa Gomez, José Manuel Ruiz Melero, Cristian Aldaz Vidarte
Funding: €50k
Founded year: 2017
Why its hot: Precisión Aérea Innovación y Nuevas Tecnología SL (PAINTEC) provides remote sensing services through drone platforms. It uses different sensors to collect useful information for further processing and conversion to deliver highly valuable information. Precision agriculture and topography are some of its applications.