Poladrone, a Malaysia-headquartered drone solutions provider, has secured US$4.29 million in a fresh investment round led by Wavemaker Partners.
Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC), Hong Kong-based ZB Capital Limited and several unnamed angels participated in the round.
Poladrone intends to utilise the money to scale up operations to improve customer service and attract talents for further product improvement.
Poladrone also has plans to expand in regional markets, including Thailand and Indonesia.
“The drone-tech ecosystem is largely fragmented in the region. With the right team, funding and support, we aim to be the leading player for all industrial drone-related solutions,” said Poladrone CEO and founder Cheong Jin Xi.
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Starting in 2016 with a team of aerospace and data engineers, Poladrone offers end-to-end drone solutions that use cost-effective autonomous drone technology to simplify and streamline operations workflow across various sectors.
Poladrone’s personalised solutions are adopted in aerial mapping and surveying, precision spraying, and infrastructure inspection.
It serves clients across four verticals: agriculture, enterprise, service and academy. In agriculture, Poladrone provides point-to-point agriculture spraying solutions Oryctes and Mist Drone, which employs autonomous agriculture drones to help manage farms and plantations.
The products can also collect and analyse data such as plant health, canopy heights and more to give recommendations and preventive actions to oil palm plantation owners and farmers.
Poladrone said it is working with eight out of ten biggest palm oil plantations in Malaysia.
“The technology offered by Poladrone would be able to reduce the reliance on foreign workers, especially in the palm oil industry, while at the same time helping increase the number of knowledge workers in the drone industry,” said MTDC.
MTDC said its investment in Poladrone will spur the adoption of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) in the agriculture sector, which is in line with Malaysia’s National 4IR Policy and the recently launched five-year growth plan The Twelfth Malaysia Plan (12MP).
Poladrone is establishing service centres in rural communities in Malaysia and Thailand to provide sales, services, and spare parts.
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“Many of our customers rely on drones to earn a living, and downtime is detrimental to their livelihood,” said Cheong. “As most operations happen away from metropolitan areas, our service centres will provide better accessibility to customers to quickly maintain or repair their equipment.”
The service centres will also serve as centres of excellence.
In the enterprise sector, Poladrone has partnered with global companies, such as DJI, Emlid, FLIR, Sentera and Micasense to deliver drone solutions for commercial usage, reducing costs and speeding up workflows.
Poladrone was the winner of the Judges’ Choice award at Echelon Asia 2017.
A Research and Market report says the global market for drone services is predicted to grow to US$40.7 billion by 2026, up from US$13.9 billion in 2021.
Drone makers have been gaining momentum in Southeast Asia, with companies such as Malaysia’s PABLO AIR, Aerodyne, Myanmar’s FROGS, Singapore’s Red Dot Drone, F-drones, WaveScan securing significant funding.
Malaysia has also ramped up several “live” drone test sites through the National Technology & Innovation Sandbox (NTIS) since its launch in 2020. After one year, the NTIS has attracted more than 25 Malaysian companies developing drone technologies that require regulatory, commercialisation, and funding support.
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Image Credit: Poladrone
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