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Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

techcrunch.com

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Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#71

Post by throwawaymath »

nostrademons wrote: post #30
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21

> Airware launched its own Commercial Drone Fund for investing in the market in 2015 Lossmaking companies launching in-house VC funds while continuing to raise money is a huge red flag. It suggests operators who prefer to be fund managers, two very different roles.

Also that they have no clue what the real needs within the market are, and so would rather spread their bets around a portfolio of other entrepreneurs who they hope have better information than them rather than focus on one single market opportunity. I know of at least two really prominent cryptocurrency ICOs that are in this boat. (As a side note, I wonder how often the opposite situation - an investor who gets so e…

> I know of at least two really prominent cryptocurrency ICOs that are in this boat.

Which two are you talking about?

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#72

Post by roymurdock »

anonairwavedev wrote: post #67
roymurdock wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/04/16/airware/ A few customers listed here: Delta Drone, Drone America. Sounds like the market didn't want or need a $2500/yr/drone software package for automating flights/data retrieval/storage. And there's simply no competing at the hardware level with DJI, even with $118M in funding. "Across all prices in North America, DJI represented 50 percent of the market, Snow says. The price rang…

None of those customers ever got an SDK (because there wasn't one) or any software. They only provided vehicles.

sounds like a really frustrating experience. sorry to hear about all the pivots, lack of strategy and vision. a good/interesting idea killed by overengineering and tough competition. sounds like you learned a lot of valuable lessons on someone else's dime while the ride lasted

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#73

Post by justicezyx »

flyinglizard wrote: post #9
jakelarkin wrote: post #7

so it seems like Drones is one of the first big nascent industries, SV utterly lost to China b/c of their dominance of manufacturing?

SV didn't lose to China; everyone lost to DJI. Their competence was staggering (I think they kind of slowed down lately being that they're so far out from everyone; throttling their innovation a bit). If DJI represents the future of Chinese corporations[0], many people on the other side of the ocean should be very wary. [0] edited from "products". In fact what's so impressive with DJI is not just the products themsel…

> many people on the other side of the ocean should be very wary.

People should be excited.

If Chinese companies all behave like DJI, that's a blessing to everyone.

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#74

Post by danso »

anonairwavedev wrote: post #61
abakker wrote: post #4

I'm not really surprised by this. At a drone conference in 2016, I first saw presentations from them among many other interesting technology vendors. They had a "vision" that they carefully presented on stage of what they would do, but everyone else at the show was either demoing technology or taking orders. Airware had a "call us for pricing" kind of attitude. Meanwhile, its been a year since Verizon acquired Skywar…

It has less to do with the space, and more to do with the odd engineering decisions and multiple pivots. There wasn't a SDK or platform to build on and we didn't take any actual orders for anything (so we had minimal success stories or $$$). The hardware we showed was built by us, and ran a custom OS (not based on linux) that was nearly impossible to work with. We had a very talented engineer rage-quit after spending…

Would Airware have attracted as much funding as it did in subsequent years if it didnt propose a pivot into hardware? Or do you think it could have eventually succeeded by focusing only on software?

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#75

Post by kermittd »

smacktoward wrote: post #36
flyinglizard wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SV didn't lose to China; everyone lost to DJI. Their competence was staggering (I think they kind of slowed down lately being that they're so far out from everyone; throttling their innovation a bit). If DJI represents the future of Chinese corporations[0], many people on the other side of the ocean should be very wary. [0] edited from "products". In fact what's so impressive with DJI is not just the products themsel…

> In fact what's so impressive with DJI is not just the products themselves, but also the design, marketing and branding, which is kind of an Apple/GoPro hybrid. They are not just creating immense value - they are packaging it the right way. This is what always struck me as so short-sighted about Western corporations offshoring their manufacturing. Japan and the Asian Tigers proved that it's possible for nations to s…

Hmm that's very interesting. Reminds me of what Netflix did to Hollywood but played out internationally.

China (Netflix) takes what the United States(Hollywood) doesn't want to do/finds little value in. Once China (Netflix) has a foundation of manufacturing know-how (media catalog)they move up the chain to more complex technical (media) products.

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#76

Post by shpx »

fipple wrote: post #8
bertil wrote: post #6

In cases like this, I rarely see the code being shared open source. Is it because it’s worthless, or because investors sell it to recuperate some costs?

It’s because 1) nobody gives a shit and 2) it would need legal review to make sure that it wouldn’t expose the defunct company to further lawsuits over copyright or patent infringement. That’s expensive and not worth it for a dead company

Would it be legal to release an encrypted archive and then release the key after 6 years (or whatever the statue of limitations for patent infringement/copyright is)?

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#77

Post by mikepurvis »

elvirs wrote: post #56
mikepurvis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that really benefit from a drone vs a wheeled vehicle with a bunch of fixed cameras on it? I would think a gigantic planar environment is pretty much ideal for an industrial SDV; a lot of things get easier when you're no longer worried about weight— you can carry a full day's worth of batteries, not to mention having higher quality optics and safety lasers. (disclosure: I work for OTTO Motors, which has customer…

wheeled vehicle parked in the isles to take a picture of a space on top shelf would be blocking pallet jakcs and other vehicles that need to move between the isles. may be a railed solution hanging from the ceiling would be better.

Rails are a lot of infrastructure to install and maintain. People complain that sticking down magnetic tape is a pain in the butt.

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#78

Post by person_of_color »

flyinglizard wrote: post #9
jakelarkin wrote: post #7

so it seems like Drones is one of the first big nascent industries, SV utterly lost to China b/c of their dominance of manufacturing?

SV didn't lose to China; everyone lost to DJI. Their competence was staggering (I think they kind of slowed down lately being that they're so far out from everyone; throttling their innovation a bit). If DJI represents the future of Chinese corporations[0], many people on the other side of the ocean should be very wary. [0] edited from "products". In fact what's so impressive with DJI is not just the products themsel…

How many state subsidies went to DJI?

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#79

Post by madengr »

“Airware was ahead of the game trying to build their software. So far ahead that the drone hardware on the market wasn’t sophisticated enough to actually produce the granularity of data they needed to test out their software/train their algorithms”

I think he means their software was not sophisticated enough.

Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M

#80

Post by anonairwavedev »

roymurdock wrote: post #72
anonairwavedev wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those customers ever got an SDK (because there wasn't one) or any software. They only provided vehicles.

sounds like a really frustrating experience. sorry to hear about all the pivots, lack of strategy and vision. a good/interesting idea killed by overengineering and tough competition. sounds like you learned a lot of valuable lessons on someone else's dime while the ride lasted

Thank you —- this makes me feel much better about the time I spent there :)
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