Switzerland’s drone mapping company Wingtra bags €20.3M: Know more

Zurich-based Wingtra, a manufacturer of professional mapping and surveying drones, announced on Tuesday, March 21, that it has raised $22M (approximately €20.38M) in a Series B round of funding to further expand its operations globally.

The investment came from DiamondStream Partners, EquityPitcher Ventures, Verve Ventures, the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), ACE & Company, John L. Steffens (founder of Spring Mountain Capital), and successful Swiss entrepreneurs.

DiamondStream’s Dean Donovan says, “We are very excited about partnering with Wingtra. The product’s simplicity of use, high-reliability engineering, and the company’s global network of value-added resellers and service providers have positioned it to expand its leadership in the $83B+ mapping segment of the aerial intelligence market globally.”

“We look forward to helping the company in the US and Latin America, which will be increasingly important geographies as Wingtra continues to expand.”

The professional VTOL drone for mapping and surveying

Founded in 2016, Wingtra was developed at ETH Zurich’s Autonomous Systems Lab, one of the world’s top technology institutions. It is the brainchild of young entrepreneurs  Maximilian Boosfeld, Basil Weibel, Elias Kleimann and Sebastian Verling.

Wingtra produces expert mapping drones and creates the flying control software for fully automated operation. The WingtraPilot app manages the combined solution for dependable, quick, and precise aerial survey data gathering and processing.

The drones are making it easier for surveying professionals in industries like construction and infrastructure, mining, environmental monitoring, agriculture and urban planning, and land management to digitise their surrounding world.

Wingtra’s trademark drone WingtraOne’s VTOL design makes it possible for it to take off and land almost anywhere, including in cramped areas and on uneven ground, which facilitates extensive data gathering.

Currently, hundreds of organisations use this drone, including CEMEX, Rio Tinto, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Kenya Red Cross. 

The drones have flown more than 100,000 times annually and have scanned 18 million acres of land and ocean (the equivalent of 13.6 million football fields).

Wingtra employs about 200 people and has offices in Zurich, Switzerland (headquarters), Fort Lauderdale, US, and Zagreb, Croatia.

The WingtraOne Gen II

The company’s second-generation drone, the WingtraOne Gen II, was launched in 2021 and provides superior survey-grade 2D and 3D maps to assist users in making better choices with the data. 

It combines the best sensors from top-tier RGB cameras to produce 3D models, in order to help in the creation of digital twins at scale so that a single trip spanning more than 100 hectares can be digitised at 0.5 in/px.

Compared to terrestrial surveying, this makes it 90 per cent less expensive and up to 30 times quicker.

Maximilian Boosfeld says, “Our vision at Wingtra is to create a world where drones help people make the management of large parts of our planet more sustainable and efficient. We reduced the cost of adopting drone assets and increased the data quality. This will help the industry to plan better and, fundamentally, improve safety for humans and the environment.”

“We have built the best tool for accurate data collection and have created solutions together with our partners for a variety of use cases our customers face.”

“As an example, our solution is used in all stages of the construction life cycle: from the concept phase (feasibility & right-of-way studies), over the design phase (bidding process, detailed design & site planning), the construction phase (progress tracking to built survey all the way to maintenance, repair and operations.”

“The same holds true for use cases in agriculture, land management and environmental protection. We will continue to innovate and solve the problems of the future with easy-to-use solutions,” adds Boosfeld.

Reinforcing the senior leadership team

Wingtra has strengthened its top leadership with the appointment of five new industry veterans.

Marcos Bayuelo joins as VP Product from Hexagon AB, where he oversaw product development and innovation for the company’s mining division, generating revenue growth of $12M to $60M in a single product portfolio.

Aleksandar Kostadinov comes in as VP Sales and Customer Success. He brings 20 years of expertise in creating foreign sales partnerships and introducing Leica and Hexagon products to untapped markets.

Alberto Toledo has joined as GM in the US from Citrix where revenue leapt from $4M to $25M in just three years. 

Corinna de Maddalena joins as VP People after having led HR functions in leading tech companies for over 15 years. 

Marco Schicker has been appointed as COO. He came from Hilti AG where he handled the transformation of global teams, and brings insights and strengths as a three-time founder.

Boosfeld says, “Every one of these leaders has the right experience to take Wingtra forward. They have all successfully grown several organisations to the next level. With this funding round, the right people and market-leading product, we are well set to accelerate the company’s growth.”