DroneDeploy Raises $50 Million in Fresh Funding Round

Software company DroneDeploy has announced the close of a $50 million Series E funding round. The round comes just about three months after a $35 million Series D round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, pushing the company's total funding to a new high.

Two rounds in a single quarter

The pace at which DroneDeploy is closing funding rounds stands out. The Series D round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, closed at the end of 2019 and brought the company's total funding to date to $90 million. The current round, also relatively large by drone software market standards, arrives before the dust from the previous round has had time to settle.

• Size of current round (Series E): $50 million
• Size of previous round (Series D): $35 million
• Series D lead investor: Bessemer Venture Partners
• Cumulative funding before current round: $90 million
• Time gap between rounds: about three months

Who's behind the money?

DroneDeploy's investor list across its various funding rounds includes familiar names from the American venture capital scene, with an emphasis on funds specializing in enterprise software and industrial technologies. This spread suggests the company is seen as a bet not just on the drone market, but on broader software infrastructure for traditional industries.

• Energize Ventures
• AirTree Ventures
• Emergence Capital
• Scale Venture Partners
• Uncork Capital

Software that isn't tied to a single drone maker

DroneDeploy's product is a cloud platform that turns raw drone-captured imagery into maps, 3D models, and progress-tracking reports. Its customers come mainly from the construction, agriculture, and energy sectors, industries where a drone functions as a measurement tool rather than a toy. The company's key selling point is broad compatibility: the platform works across hardware from several drone manufacturers at once, rather than being locked to a single supplier. That sets it apart from closed solutions bundled with a specific drone, and lets enterprise customers choose their hardware without giving up the software they've already deployed.

Where will the money go?

DroneDeploy says the new funds are earmarked mainly for expanding its ground-truthing capabilities, meaning the verification of analytics data against actual field measurements, as well as for broadening the range of industries the platform serves. The announcement comes at a time when drone software companies are competing less on hardware specs and more on who can turn raw flight data into actionable business decisions.

The open question is how quickly the ground-truthing and data-analysis market will actually mature into stable revenue, even as investors keep pouring in capital based more on growth potential than proven profitability. Such a quick follow-up round also points to both strong investor appetite and DroneDeploy's need for extra fuel to keep up its pace of expansion against rivals in the industrial mapping software space.