Robohub.org
 

Big bucks and big audiences for drones


by
14 September 2015



share this:
interdrone

image: InterDrone

Intel Capital invested $60m in Chinese drone startup Yuneec last month. At last week’s InterDrone conference and expo, one can readily see why: lots of interest, lots of people, and products that are becoming commodities.

Intel and Yuneec will work on developing future products. Yuneec makes drones for consumers and industrial users, as well as manned electric aircraft. Intel has also invested in drone companies Airware and PrecisionHawk. These drone relationships fit with Intel’s strategy to make investments in companies developing products with the potential to expand the market for semiconductors, as the company searches for new devices for chips.

interdrone_1Hong Kong-based Yuneec Electric Aviation is one of the Big 3 of drone manufacturers exhibiting at this week’s InterDrone International Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas. The other two being SZ DJI Innovations and 3D Robotics. Yuneec and DJI are Chinese companies; 3D Robotics is San Diego based. DJI recently received $75m from Silicon Valley VC, Accel Partners. 3D Robotics got $64m so far this year. A study of the 700+ FAA exemptions for commercial drone use shows that the overwhelming majority of them are for companies using DJI quadcopters.

Sixty million dollars for Yuneek, $75m to DJI and $64m to 3D Robotics adds up to a lot of money and interest.

That interest was apparent at the InterDrone event at the Rio Convention Center in Las Vegas. It was the first such event for InterDrone, yet from my walk around the show and attendance at a few of the packed conference sessions, it seemed to be successful. 99 exhibitors and over 3,000 visitors. I heard the latter group asking very cogent questions about how drones’ capabilities, their data and mapping software could be used for various applications. The appeared to be a high number of foreign visitors (as can be seen on the pin-board map.)

Interdrone-3Another observation from the show was the number of secondary exhibitors: GoPro and GoPro accessories, makers of carrying cases, lenses, sensors, mapping software, retail stores carrying multiple lines of drones, cameras and cases. Samy’s Camera, a large West Coast camera and printer provider, was showing off the fact that they’ve been selling all brands of drones for photographic purposes for years.

BOTTOM LINE: The commercial drone industry is maturing in a similar way to industrial robots: a few major manufacturers are providing their arms (drones) to thousands of integrators, resellers and value-added service providers, which extend the sales reach of the drone (robot) manufacturers.

 



tags: , ,


Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.
Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.





Related posts :



Engineering fantasy into reality

  26 Aug 2025
PhD student Erik Ballesteros is building “Doc Ock” arms for future astronauts.

RoboCup@Work League: Interview with Christoph Steup

and   22 Aug 2025
Find out more about the RoboCup League focussed on industrial production systems.

Interview with Haimin Hu: Game-theoretic integration of safety, interaction and learning for human-centered autonomy

and   21 Aug 2025
Hear from Haimin in the latest in our series featuring the 2025 AAAI / ACM SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants.

AIhub coffee corner: Agentic AI

  15 Aug 2025
The AIhub coffee corner captures the musings of AI experts over a short conversation.

Interview with Kate Candon: Leveraging explicit and implicit feedback in human-robot interactions

and   25 Jul 2025
Hear from PhD student Kate about her work on human-robot interactions.

#RoboCup2025: social media round-up part 2

  24 Jul 2025
Find out what participants got up to during the second half of RoboCup2025 in Salvador, Brazil.

#RoboCup2025: social media round-up 1

  21 Jul 2025
Find out what participants got up to during the opening days of RoboCup2025 in Salvador, Brazil.

Livestream of RoboCup2025

  18 Jul 2025
Watch the competition live from Salvador!



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence