US-based drone services provider DroneBase has attracted $12m in a series B round featuring Hearst Ventures, the corporate venturing unit owned by media group Hearst.
Venture capital firms Upfront Ventures and Union Square Ventures co-led the round, which included investment firm Pritzker Group’s Private Capital unit and SkyFund, the investment vehicle backed by unmanned aerial vehicle producer DJI and VC firm Accel.
Founded in 2014, DroneBase enables clients to arrange flights through the company’s network of licensed contractor pilots in order to access aerial images or video footage.
The company recently launched a mobile app for its pilots and introduced augmented reality (AR) software for video feeds.
Jan Gasparic, DJI’s head of enterprise partnerships, said: “DroneBase has addressed two key challenges in the industry by providing reliable, affordable and scalable drone services for enterprises across industries, while offering opportunities for pilots of all skill sets with purposeful reasons to fly their drones.”
The series B proceeds will support the release an enterprise edition of the AR feature called AirCraft Pro later this year, as well as the development of the core DroneBase platform. The company has now raised more than $17m in funding altogether, it said.
Union Square Ventures, SV Angel, Rothenberg Ventures and Launchpad LA supplied an undisclosed amount for DroneBase in March 2015 before SkyFund added an undisclosed sum four months later.
DroneBase had secured $6.8m of a targeted $7.3m in equity funding as of June 2016, according to a securities filing, capital that may well have made up part of the series B round.