Skydio, the leading U.S. drone manufacturer and world leader in autonomous flight, announced today that it has raised $230 million in funding after a year in which its enterprise customer base surpassed 1,200 organizations, just three years after entering the enterprise and public sector markets.
Skydio drones are now used by every branch of the United States Department of Defense, more than half of all state departments of transportation in the United States, over 200 public safety agencies in 47 states, and more than 60 energy utilities. Skydio is also used by businesses in a variety of other industries. These clients are automating complex inspection tasks and gaining situational awareness in critical situations. Skydio has grown to become the nation’s biggest drone thanks to its autonomy technology.
Skydio’s total funding raised to date is $562 million, with a current valuation of more than $2.2 billion. Linse Capital led the round, with existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Next47, IVP, DoCoMo, NVIDIA, the Walton Family Foundation, and UP.Partners also participating. Skydio also welcomed new investors Hercules Capital and Axon, a global public safety technology leader and key Skydio technology partner.
Today’s funding and expansion news follows the release of Skydio Dock and Skydio Dock Lite, which are powered by Skydio’s new Remote Ops software and allow drones to be flown without the presence of an operator.
Skydio has also recently launched Regulatory Services, which are breaking down the Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) barrier by granting customers permission to operate Skydio drones beyond line of sight, including fully remote operations. The combination of technological maturity and regulatory progress for fully autonomous operations represents an industry tipping point.
Skydio’s 30x growth over the last three years has earned it a spot on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500TM list of the fastest-growing North American companies. The expansion occurs against the backdrop of a market that has historically been dominated by manually flown drones manufactured by Chinese companies beholden to Chinese government policy.
Skydio solves these issues with world-class autonomous flight technology and manufacturing scale in the United States, which many in the drone industry did not believe was possible just a few years ago. Skydio increased its overall headcount by 40% in the last year. Skydio also unveiled its new U.S. manufacturing facilities in Hayward, CA, which total over 36,000 square feet and represent a tenfold increase in capacity. Skydio expects to add over 150 manufacturing jobs to its Hayward, CA facility and other U.S. locations in order to meet demand and support its rapidly growing global customer base.
