UK-based Altitude Angel, a UTM (Unified Traffic Management) technology provider, announced on Wednesday, January 4, that it has raised £5M (approximately €5.64M) in a fresh round of funding. UTM is the software platform and infrastructure required to allow drones to fly safely, without a pilot, over large distances.
The funding came from the incubation team in BT Group’s Digital unit. BT Group claims to be the UK’s leading provider of fixed and mobile telecommunications and related secure digital products, solutions and services. It also provides managed telecommunications, security, and network and IT infrastructure services to customers across 180 countries.
The deal is a crucial first step for Altitude Angel in advancing its technology to allow long-distance drone flights, supporting the possibility for quicker delivery of essential and non-essential items, and opening up a market that is projected to be worth £45B by 2030.
The relation between BT Group and Altitude Angel
The collaboration between the two companies developed since the earlier success of Project Xcelerate. With the current deal, the relationship further developed as the two are working under Project Skyway, the world’s largest and longest network of drone superhighways. The project is supported by the UK government’s Future Flight initiative.
ARROW, developed by Altitude Angel, is the foundation technology on which Project Skyway is being built, creating a 165-mile drone corridor spanning airspace above Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry, and Rugby.
To install and manage Altitude Angel’s ARROW tower network, BT Group will supply connection, network infrastructure, and its scaling expertise. In addition to offering commercial assistance for automated, intelligent drone inspections of infrastructure and retail drone deliveries, BT Group will serve as the primary distributor of Altitude Angel’s software.
The company says the growth of smart cities will be facilitated by this technology, which will also give emergency services and the defence sector better capabilities.
Richard Parker, CEO and founder of Altitude Angel, says, “With BT Group, Altitude Angel has a partner which shares its ambition to make automated commercial drone operations at scale in the UK a day-to-day reality. Combining our ARROW technology, which allows crewed and uncrewed aircraft to share the same skies, safely and securely, with BT Group’s significant communications infrastructure, we can quickly bring ARROW to the masses. This will provide the UK with the first nationwide drone superhighways, unlocking the potential of this new and innovative technology and revolutionising business operations in countless industries.”
In order to advance the cooperation and achieve its goals, BT Group will hold a position on Altitude Angel’s board, which will be held by Dave Pankhurst, BT Group’s Director of Drones.
Capital utilisation
Altitude Angel says that the funds will accelerate the roll-out of its ARROW technology in order to support commercial and retail use cases, while also paving the way for drones to revolutionise the way that basic services are provided.
The services include real-time search and rescue for emergency services, quick delivery of medical supplies, farming analysis, and architectural planning.
Brief about Altitude Angel
Founded in 2014 by Richard Parker, Altitude Angel is a provider of UTM software that makes it possible to use or create UTM/U-Space solutions to rapidly and easily integrate reliable data and services.
The company’s first-party solutions also power some of the world’s leading ANSPs, aviation authorities and Enterprises, including LVNL (Netherlands) and Avinor (Norway), empowering them with new capabilities to manage and integrate drone traffic into national operations safely.
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