To scale across Southeast Asia, US $4.29 M received by Malaysia’s drone startup Poladrone
Poladrone, a Malaysia-based drone solutions company, has raised $4.29 million in a new round of funding sponsored by Wavemaker Partners.
The financing included the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC), Hong Kong-based ZB Capital Limited, and many unknown angel investors.
Poladrone plans to use the funds to expand operations in order to improve customer service and recruit expertise for product development.
In addition, Poladrone intends to develop in regional markets like as 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.
Poladrone, founded in 2016 by a group of aerospace and data experts, provides end-to-end drone solutions that employ cost-effective autonomous drone technology to simplify and expedite operations workflow in a variety of industries.
Aerial mapping and surveying, precise spraying, and infrastructure inspection are all applications for Poladrone’s customised solutions.
Agriculture, enterprise, service, and academy are the four verticals through which it serves clients. In agriculture, Poladrone offers the Oryctes and Mist Drone point-to-point spraying systems, which use autonomous agricultural drones to help manage fields and plants.
The tools may also gather and analyse data such as plant health, canopy heights, and other factors to provide oil palm plantation owners and farmers with suggestions and preventative measures.
According to Poladrone, it works with eight of Malaysia’s top 10 palm oil estates.
“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.
The MTDC’s investment in Poladrone would help the agriculture industry adopt the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which is in accordance with Malaysia’s National 4IR Policy, and the newly established five-year growth plan The Twelfth Malaysia Plan, according to the company (12MP).
In Malaysia and Thailand, Poladrone is creating service centres to provide sales, servicing, and replacement parts to remote populations.
“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 function as excellence centres. Poladrone has teamed with worldwide firms including DJI, Emlid, FLIR, Sentera, and Micasense to develop drone solutions for commercial use, lowering costs and speeding up workflows.
At Echelon Asia 2017, Poladrone took up the Judges’ Choice award. According to research published by Research and Markets, the global market for drone services is expected to expand to $40.7 billion by 2026, up from $13.9 billion in 2021.
Drone manufacturers in Southeast Asia have been gaining traction, with businesses including PABLO AIR, Aerodyne, Myanmar’s FROGS, Singapore’s Red Dot Drone, F-drones, and WaveScan getting major investment.
Since its inception in 2020, Malaysia’s National Technology & Innovation Sandbox (NTIS) has expanded to include numerous “live” drone test locations. After a year, the NTIS has attracted over 25 Malaysian firms working on drone technologies that require regulatory, commercialization, and financial assistance.
