What would you do if the humble business you owned suddenly got funded by…I don’t know…10,000,000 US Dollars? A lot of options come to mind (a few involving Olympic-sized pools filled with ice cream) but for Auterion – the startup drone software company who actually won said funding – their plan is to solve the problem of incompatibility between drones and the various services they provide.
The funding comes via venture companies Tectonic Ventures, Lakestar, Mosaic Ventures, and Costanoa Ventures, all of whom clearly have faith in Auterion’s work.
Founded in November 2017, Auterion has since soft-launched their PX4-based operating system in attempts to create a unified standard that companies can work their services around. Now with the added funding, the company aims to work closer to the PX4 community to bring the technology through their Auterion platform.
“Satisfying these heterogeneous commercial applications will inevitably demand a broad portfolio of resources and talents to deliver complex vertical solutions,” explained CEO Kevin Startori in an interview with TechCrunch. “Such complex and complete solutions are difficult for a single vendor to build and deliver successfully. Auterion builds the open infrastructure (operating system) so that suppliers, manufacturers, and service companies can respond to the demand in the market and build their product and services on top of global standards.”
Seeing as Auterion is already one of the largest contributors to the PX4 community, working with other open drone software members such as Trimble, 3D Robotics, and even Sony helps ensure better integration with as many products as possible.
In addition to collaboration, Sartori states Auterion also offers support services such as predictive maintenance and cloud analytics as turnkey solutions once the software is installed.
With so much money on the line, here’s to hoping their dream of a unified drone populace becomes a reality.
