Building on its strategy to drive innovation and adoption for IoT services in high-growth markets, Verizon announced that it has purchased Skyward, a private company based in Portland, Oregon. Skyward brings drone operations management to the Verizon IoT portfolio, simplifying drone operations and management for organizations of any size. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. Internationally, companies rely on Skyward for managing operations, improving safety and lowering operating costs. Through this acquisition, businesses small and large will now have a single source for integrating, managing and wirelessly connecting their drone operations – linking all the people, projects and equipment involved into one clear and efficient workflow.
“The work we’re doing at Skyward lays the foundation of an equitable, safe, regulated, intelligent drone network that businesses of all sizes can participate in and innovate with—just as we do with the Internet today,” Jonathan Evans, Skyward Co-President told UAS VISION.Mike Lanman, senior vice president – Enterprise Products and IoT at Verizon, said: “Last quarter we announced our strategy to drive innovation and widespread adoption for in-flight wireless connectivity through our Airborne LTE Operations (ALO) initiative, a new service to simplify certification and connectivity of wireless drones. This acquisition is a natural progression of our core focus on operating in innovative, high-growth markets, leveraging our network, scale, fleet management, device management, data analytics and security enablement capabilities and services to simplify the drone industry and help support the adoption of IoT.”
Skyward founder and CEO Jonathan Evans added: “Drones are becoming an essential tool for improving business processes at large companies, but scalability has been a challenge. Skyward’s drone operations management platform combined with Verizon’s network, reliability, scale and expertise in delivering enterprise solutions will allow organizations to efficiently and safely scale drones across multiple divisions and hundreds of use cases.”
Through investments and strategic business and industry partnerships, Verizon continues to drive innovation via its Verizon Labs technology organization and Verizon Ventures, the company’s venture capital division. Verizon Ventures brought Skyward in as a portfolio company and was the first wireless service provider to become a member of the Small UAV Coalition (SUAVC). The acquisition of Skyward speaks to Verizon’s strategy to operate in innovative, high growth markets leveraging core assets to help accelerate IoT adoption. In 2016, revenue from Verizon’s internet of things business approached $1 billion.
Verizon, you should be looking at Unmanned Systems Incorporated’s Sandshark. They’ve been flying over the 4G network for about 6 years now…from up to 2500 miles from operator to aircraft!