Published on the 22/03/2018 | Written by Jonathan Cotton
Operating drones over the internet? Yes please. Cape brings remote control drone tech downunder…
The company has announced the successful Series A funding round which also included investment from Google’s Gradient Ventures, Mitsui & Co. and NEA.
Founded in 2014, Cape builds ‘aerial telepresence’ – think drone software that lets untrained users fly drones over the internet. The company, which has interests in the US, Canada, New Zealand, the Middle East says it will use the money from the funding round to support R&D and expand its go-to-market teams, including in Australia.
Cape’s cloud platform lets untrained users control consumer, professional, and enterprise-level UAVs via their laptops over unlimited distances. With low latency controls and high resolution video, and without requiring the user to interact with any of the hardware themselves at all, the company says its software has been used to support more than 100,000 flights around the world already.
“Cape’s cloud platform lets untrained users control consumer, professional, and enterprise-level UAVs via their laptops over unlimited distances.”
“Cape’s drone remote control and AI platform is an important emerging technology with diverse applications and benefits across industries,” said Matthew Koertge, MD Telstra Ventures.
“Market adoption is happening because enterprise customers can use Cape software today. We are excited to bring Cape to Australia so that Telstra customers can benefit from these advancements.”
Australia is presumably a good opportunity for the company with many potential applications for the product – including emergency response, remote inspections and farming.
“We have identified Australia as a country that would benefit from the use of drones across a number of industrial and government verticals,” says new appointee,” Chris Rittler.
“Telstra Ventures has closely followed developments in drone technology based on feedback from customers regarding their desire to use drones, as well as our own drones program – including using drone technology to inspect some of Telstra’s many cell towers and structures.”
The move follows Telstra’s call in January to relax line-of-sight drone laws in Australia. Currently drone users – both professional and private – may only operate drones they can actually see in the air. Telstra told a Senate inquiry that allowing operators to use drones outside of field-of-vision – taking appropriate safety measures – could pave the way for drone tech innovation in Australia.
“In our line of work, BVLOS [Beyond Visual Line of Sight] would allow us to more efficiently assess damage to mobile network towers and other infrastructure during disaster situations when the infrastructure is not accessible by vehicle,” the company said in its submission.
The company also suggested that regulation change would support the use of drones for shark surveillance or in “disaster response and restoration in situations where it is not always possible or safe for a user to be close enough to maintain visual line of sight (e.g., bush fires or chemical spills)”. Australia Post has similarly supported calls to relax line-of-sight laws in Australia.
