Flytrex Obtains $9.3M With Venture Financing and Innovation Grant for Drone Deliveries
Summary
Flytrex last week said it had closed $8 million in financing led by existing investors Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV) and btov. Flytrex said it will use the funds to expand its footprint across the U.S. and scale up its production and research and development capabilities.The financing follows a 2019 round, bringing total funding to $20.3 million, said the company, which claimed to be a leader in on-demand drone delivery for food and retail.Flytrex said the investment comes in the wake of several significant milestones. In September 2020, the company announced a benchmark pilot project to deliver select grocery and household essential items from Walmart stores in Fayetteville, N.C., using Flytrexs autonomous drone delivery service.In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Flytrex had launched a system delivering necessities to residents of Grand Forks, N.D., helping address the growing health crisis by keeping citizens in the safety of their own homes and reducing crowding and unnecessary contact at local stores.Our mission is to make widespread on-demand drone delivery the rule rather than the exception and this funding is a vote of confidence from our investors that we are indeed on the way to making this a reality, said Yariv Bash, co-founder and CEO of Flytrex. Flytrex has been participating in the Federal Aviation Administrations Unmanned Aerial System Integration Pilot Program (FAA UAS IPP) since 2018.The company added that it was recently selected for the FAAs subsequent BEYOND initiative to work with the Kansas Department of Transportation, the North Carolina Department of Transportation, and the North Dakota Department of Transportation to help tackle the remaining challenges of UAS integration. In November 2020, Flytrex was included in the FAAs select list of several drone companies set to gain airworthiness certification, a crucial step to enabling the safe integration of drones into existing airspace.Its been thrilling to watch Flytrex become a world leader in the drone delivery space with multiple airborne delivery systems around the world, said Barak Ben Avinoam, managing partner at BGV Europe and Israel.