UPDATED 12:27 EDT / JANUARY 17 2017

EMERGING TECH

Measure raises $15M to grow its drone service for the enterprise

Washington, D.C.-based drone startup Measure, which bills itself as a drone service for the enterprise, today announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding to expand its platform.

Rather than designing and building drones, Measure provides what it calls a drone-as-a-service platform, allowing companies without their own drone programs to take advantage of the benefits they offer. For example, Measure offers drone services for property inspections, aerial media coverage, disaster response, agricultural surveys and more. “We don’t make drones. We make drones work,” the company says on its website.

This year alone, Measure says its drone pilots have conducted more than 1,100 flights for a number of Fortune 1000 companies, including telecoms like Verizon and media organizations such as ABC and CNN. The company uses a wide range of drone models, including fixed-wing craft, quadcopters and others.

Measure’s latest funding round was led by information technology services firm Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., along with contributions from Hudson Bay Capital and others. Combined with Measure’s earlier funding in September 2015, this brings the company’s total funding to date to over $20 million.

Chief Executive Brandon Torres Declet said that the new funds will allow the company to scale so that it can take on new business.

“This is a tremendous moment for Measure and for the drone industry and we believe 2017 is when everyone pivots towards services,” he said in a statement. “This investment round will help make it possible to expand to new customers; we look forward to continuing to work with Cognizant to offer new, innovative services around data analysis not currently available in the market.”

The drone industry has been growing rapidly in recent years, and while there have been more than a few failed drone companies, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP predicted last year that the drone market could reach $127 billion in value by 2020. A number of drone companies have seen sizable funding rounds over the last year, including a $20 million round by DroneDeploy in August and a $25 million round by Zipline in November.

“Drone services is one of the fastest-growing technology segments with the potential to provide extraordinary value to industries such as insurance, manufacturing, logistics, oil and gas, retail, government, and media and communications,” said Sean Middleton, president of the Cognizant Accelerator, the lead investor in Measure’s funding round.

Image courtesy of Measure

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