Agriculture drone technology provider Raptor Maps is getting the backing it needs to make its solutions soar. The company announced that Airware’s Commercial Drone Fund has decided to invest in them. The fund was established as a way to support developing commercial drone businesses, technologies and services.
“The agriculture sector has been an early adopter of commercial drone technology, with several companies now offering products for monitoring crops,” said John Kolaczynski, head of corporate development for the Commercial Drone Fund. “What impressed us with Raptor Maps? product is that it collects a vast amount of data, distills it down, and correlates actions that a grower can take on a season-to-season basis’something we haven”T seen in other drone products. We believe this is a great product for the agriculture sector that can drive increased yields and reduced costs for growers.”
Raptor Maps aims to provider farmers with an affordable systems that allows them to use drones to map, analyze and measure their crops. According to the company, this allows them to save time, money and resources, all while maximizing crop yield.
“Raptor Maps gave me a breakdown of potato sizes on my 130-acre field,” said Steve Phipps of Piper Ranch in Moses Lake, Wash. “The size analysis showed I could reduce an input and save money while maintaining yield. The professional crew installed hardware and gathered data without interrupting our operation”Zero downtime and provided a unique and valuable service, and I will use them again next year.”
In addition, the company allows farmers to gain statistical analysis for A/B testing on crops.
“Until now, drone technology has been more of a curiosity in agriculture,” said Nikhil Vadhavkar, CEO of Raptor Maps. “Farmers would receive maps with generic metrics like ‘crop stress,” but the actionability and ability to calculate a return on investment was limited. We are now able to ground truth the drone data and perform statistical analyses to show a farmer the value they are receiving from their practices in absolute (rather than relative) terms.”
