San Francisco-based drone startup DroneDeploy has just raised an impressive $20 million in Series B funding, bringing the company’s total funding to-date up to $31 million. The latest funding round was led by Scale Venture Partners, along with other contributions from existing investors and High Alpha Capital. DroneDeploy says that it will use the new funding to not only to increase its market penetration, but also to further develop its enterprise-focused features.

DroneDeploy does not actually manufacture drones. Instead, it offers mobile drone software as a subscription service that upgrades a wide range of common DJI drone types, allowing them to be used for aerial mapping, surveying, and geographical 3D modeling. The company said that as of today, its tools have been used to map over 5 million acres across 120 countries.

In its announcement, DroneDeploy noted that now is the perfect time for enterprises to start take advantage of the value offered by drones thanks to upcoming changes in the way the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates commercial drone use. The implementation of FAA Part 107, which arrives on August 29, will greatly reduce the restrictions on drones for businesses, dramatically lowering the barrier to entry for commercial drone operators.

Image courtesy of DroneDeploy

Perhaps one of the most important changes is the elimination of the requirement for a pilot’s license, which will dramatically lower the training time and costs involved for commercial drone use.

“2016 has marked a tipping point for commercial drones,” said Mike Winn, co-founder and CEO of DroneDeploy.  “Businesses in every industry are leveraging drones and our software, and seeing that easy-to-capture, aerial data enables faster and better decisions. With next week’s passing of the FAA Part 107, enterprises are moving quickly to prepare their workforces to leverage drones company-wide.”

As part of its goal to expand its enterprise features, DroneDeploy has also added Rory O’Driscoll to its board, who has previously played a role in other cloud enterprise software products, including Omniture and ExactTarget.

Drones: The new cartographers

A number of major companies, including both Alphabet Inc (Google) and Amazon, have already been conducting their own drone tests, and it is easy to see why. As with any form of automation, drones have the potential to be both highly efficient and relatively inexpensive in a wide range of roles. This is especially true of DroneDeploy’s area of expertise: aerial mapping.

Unlike traditional aircraft, drones can fly close to the ground and operate in populated areas in relative safety, and not only are the drones themselves cheaper and more fuel efficient than manned aircraft, but they also do not require the use of a highly trained (and highly expensive) pilot. Even better, DroneDeploy’s software takes care of every step of the process, from mapping out the drone’s flight plan to generating the 3D model of the map itself.

DroneDeploy’s tools could be useful in a wide range of industries, from agriculture to construction and more.

Image courtesy of DroneDeploy