Unmanned Aerial Vehicle The latest drone news
A well known Japanese investor has began a $9M fund to encourage drone startups in Japan.
Japanese information supply The Bridge stories that investor Kotaro Chiba joined Kamakura Investment Management to determine the 1 billion yen (about $9M US) DroneFund. Chiba, a co-founder of Japanese gaming and site companies platform Colopl, is a distinguished investor in cellular gaming and VR purposes. With a board stacked with tech and drone consultants together with representatives from Microsoft, Rakuten and Google, and Keio University, the newly shaped DroneFund hopes to determine a drone ecosystem in Japan.
“I believe that drones will be an integral part of society. But it will require investment of risk money, internet-based management systems, and …the production of good technology, ” says Chiba. (Quote translated from Japanese.) “The plan is to overcome these hurdles with the fund, and disseminate Japanese drone technologies and services to the world.”
The fund begins out supporting 11 drone startups – representing applied sciences from aerial imaging to drone racing, drone patent submitting, and a hover bike – with financing and a help group referred to as “Chiba Dojo.”
Chiba says that expects the drone market to develop by 900% by 2022, reaching $1.three billion; however says that Japan is lagging. Japanese drone firms usually are not well-known, however the Japanese authorities has made efforts to encourage the business. While leisure drones are closely restricted in Japanese cities as a result of an incident by which a small drone carrying radioactive materials landed on the roof of the Prime Minister’s Office, the federal government has labored to advertise business drones.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has referred to as the drone business a part of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and pledged that Japan wouldn’t be left behind. Since then, the nation has established particular de-regulation zones to permit for testing of drone know-how, opened bandwidth for drone communications, and deliberate regulation to encourage business purposes.
