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Drone startup Airware crashes, will shut down after burning $118M –

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday September 16 2018, @03:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the airware-vaporware dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Drone operating system startup Airware today suddenly informed employees it will cease operations immediately despite having raised $118 million from top investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Google's GV, and Kleiner Perkins. The startup ran out of money after trying to manufacture its own hardware that couldn't compete with drone giants like China's DJI. The company at one point had as many as 140 employees, all of which are now out of a job.

A source sent TechCrunch screenshots from the Airware alumni Slack channel detailing how the staff was told this morning that Airware would shut down.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/14/airware-shuts-down/

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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday September 16 2018, @06:16AM (1 child)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday September 16 2018, @06:16AM (#735558) Homepage Journal

    FTFY

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday September 16 2018, @11:55AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday September 16 2018, @11:55AM (#735619)

    I'd guess less than 10% of the money went on hookers and blow, although they did start an investment fund - so the percentage that went over there might have been higher.

    The drone business involves expensive toys, $5K per unit for whatever fancy unit you think you want/need - not talking full system, just: gimbal pointer for camera $5K, software to control gimbal pointer for camera: $5K, software to interpret and store imagery acquired from gimbal camera $5K.

    The only thing more expensive than blowing $5K on all these little chunks is hiring development staff to make the widgets in-house when you don't have a market to sell enough of the chunks yourself.

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