Enterprise drone large Crimson Cat is doubling down on its deal with making drones for the navy. The Puerto Rico-based navy tech firm, which owns notable enterprise and navy drone firms corresponding to Teal Drones, this week introduced an funding in Firestorm.
Firestorm is a U.S.-based firm constructing a modular drone that can also be 3D-printed and payload agnostic. Crimson Cat offered few particulars on the funds, apart from that it’s “a materially important funding.”
The funding is more likely to propel Crimson Cat’s different subsidiaries ahead — significantly Teal, which is most well-known for its Golden Eagle surveillance drone, and in addition just lately launched what’s referred to as the Teal 2 drone.
“We imagine that our Teal 2 drone and the Firestorm UAV could possibly be an incredible mixture for the warfighter,” stated Crimson Cat CEO Jeff Thompson in a ready assertion.
The Teal 2 drone was designed particularly for nighttime operations and has a navy focus at its forefront. In reality, Crimson Cat has already stuffed an order from U.S. Customs and Border Safety for 54 models of the Teal 2, and the corporate stated it has just lately been visiting NATO nations to debate how Ukrainian forces may use the Teal 2 to counter Russian forces significantly after darkish.
What’s Firestorm?
Firestorm markets itself as “a brand new class of fixed-wing UAS with 30-day product iterations, a dedication to open-system architectures, and an additive manufacturing method that permits them to scale manufacturing in an elastic method. ”
The drones have especially-long vary, and can even loiter for longer durations, making them extra environment friendly and cost-effective.
With the Crimson Cat funding, Firestorm will get a leg up in a myriad of how, together with gaining access to Crimson Cat’s manufacturing facility in Salt Lake Metropolis which might assist it ramp up manufacturing.
Crimson Cat’s pastime days are over
Crimson Cat at one level owned a spread of drone firms together with well-known names like Fats Shark, which is probably greatest identified for its position making FPV goggles for drone racing (although it additionally makes different merchandise like an all-in-the-box FPV drone racing package. The portfolio additionally included drone way of life and racing model Rotor Riot, in addition to distant inspection firm Skypersonic and Dronebox, an analytics platform for cloud-based flight intelligence.
However as of late, Crimson Cat, which is publicly traded on the Nasdaq inventory change, calls itself “a navy know-how firm that integrates robotic {hardware} and software program to offer essential situational consciousness and actionable intelligence to on-the-ground warfighters and battlefield commanders.”
It nonetheless owns Skypersonic, and it most prominently touts possession of Teal, which it acquired in 2021. It additionally just lately partnered with Tomahawk Robotics and Reveal Know-how.
However so far as a few of the extra hobby-focused firms go, they’re gone. On the finish of 2022, Crimson Cat introduced that it will unload its shopper division — which consisted of Rotor Riot and Fats Shark Holdings — to an organization referred to as Uncommon Machines for $18 million (consisting of 5 million in money, $2.5 million in a convertible senior observe of Uncommon Machines, and $10.5 million in Sequence A convertible most well-liked inventory). These firms had been all about FPV, drone racing and different sides of leisure and pastime drones.
“The sale of Rotor Riot and Fats Shark Holdings will enable us to focus our efforts and capital on navy and protection,” stated Crimson Cat CEO Jeff Thompson.
Although hobbyists and racing people needn’t fear. Rotor Riot continues to be alive and properly, together with its lively YouTube channel.
