In news that came as a surprise to customers and partners, Verizon Skyward closed their drone software business yesterday.  Started in 2013, Skyward.io was purchased by telecomm giant Verizon in 2017.  Yesterday, the company sent customers an email that announced their intention to close:

We are announcing today that Skyward, A Verizon company, will be ending operations in the coming weeks.

This was not an easy decision.  The Verizon Robotics team will be focusing our efforts on ground robot management, connectivity services, and solution development.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this will cause you…

Customers, partners, drone industry stakeholders and even competitors have expressed surprise and some disappointment at the company’s closure.  Skyward was among the first commercial drone management platforms: and as a company, hired talented people who participated and collaborated in moving the industry forward through regulations and technology development.

A Verizon representative provided DRONELIFE with this comment:

Yesterday, Skyward, a Verizon company, announced that it was exiting its drone business. The company remains focused on its investment in ground robotic management, connectivity services, and solution development. The Verizon Robotics Group enables enterprise customers to efficiently adopt and scale Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) to improve productivity, deliver faster time to insight, and reduce costs through automation and 5G.

This decision is about market agility and ensuring that Verizon continues to focus on areas that provide both near and mid-term growth opportunities. We continue to focus our investment on ground robotics including incubedIT, supporting industrial and outdoor uses in the US and Europe.

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