Airwave Acquires Drone-Data Firm Redbird

A growing turn-key drone company knows the old saying is true—“a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”—especially when it comes to expanding into a dynamic new UAV market.

Airware – a California-based enterprise firm – acquired Redbird, a Paris-based UAV cloud/data telemetry company in a deal last week that will fly Airware higher into the growing, drone-based construction and mining sector.

According to an Airware press release, the acquisition will add Redbird’s “sophisticated geospatial analytics to the Airware Aerial Information Platform” – a platform that focuses on enterprise solutions such as workflow, compliance, and security features.

“Construction and excavation sites, such as mines and quarries, must be managed and operated digitally in order to compete in today’s markets,” Airware CEO Jonathan Downey said. “Commercial drone technology brings these operations into the digital world while offering faster, cheaper and higher-quality data and analytics.”

Downey noted the combination of Airware’s turn-key drone system, combined with Redbird’s reputation in the construction/mining market as a top drone-data provider, will provide clients with 100 times more data coupled with a five-fold turnaround in analytics.

It’s a move the construction/mining market is applauding. Redbird client Groupe CB Aggregates sees the acquisition as a means to manage a drone-based operation from the bottom up.  “We wanted a way to scale our use of drones to more frequent surveys across more sites,” Vincent Amossé, Deputy CEO, Groupe CB – Aggregates Division said.

“Now with Airware, we can access an end-to-end enterprise solution that enables us to manage our entire drone operations from planning and worker management, to repeatable data capture, and analysis and reporting.”

Redbird’s secret sauce is its use of powerful algorithms that automatically extracts information about productivity and safety of industrial operations. Coupled with the power of the cloud, Redbird customers can easily access, annotate, share, and collaborate with drone-based information.

For Redbird, joining the Airware family adds one more feather in the company’s cap (pun almost intended):

• In December of last year, Redbird inked an agreement with Caterpillar paving the way for the heavy equipment to resell Redbird solutions.
• In April 2015, Redbird expanded its corporate nest, opening an American HQ in San Francisco.
• Last year, French energy company GDF Suez announced a partnership with Redbird to monitor natural gas infrastructures. GDF Suez’s venture capital subsidiary invested $2.1 million in Redbird to facilitate drone monitoring of natural gas infrastructure, survey topography and to monitor security for public institutions.