It’s that time of year! Join us for the next eight days for what’s become an OurCrowd tradition: highlighting during Hanukkah — the festival of lights – the top eight Israeli tech trends that spark the interest of our investment team and what they see on the ground.
Trend #7: Drones
Behind the trend:
Admit it. It’s on your Hanukkah gift wish list. After all those bird’s eye view videos on Facebook of your college roommate’s Victorian home, Bay Area neighborhood and snowboarding trip in Vail, you’ve finally confessed your desire for your very own drone. You’re not alone. As drone technology has improved and costs lowered, people are clamoring for their own commercial unmanned aircraft and coming up with creative uses for them.
Drones are being used for more than just real estate sales and vain entertainment purposes, however. Farmers use them for aerial survey of fields and crops. Police employ them for surveillance purposes. In fact, drones were a huge hit at the Paris Police Expo last month, where manufacturers noted an increase in inquiries and demands from police who see drones as a tool against terror.
What’s up next:
Don’t look further than your doorstep: package delivery via drone technology is apparently a reality set to launch in the “not so distant future.” Amazon just released last month a new video about their future drone delivery system designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less.
Perhaps the online shopping giant will be employing the technology of Percepto, an Israeli startup who is “boosting the intelligence” of the average drone. The company’s open source computer vision solution aims to make it so drones can handle computer vision processes better, leading to improved obstacle avoidance. This would allow drones to follow and film a car as it moves, for instance, or follow you!
What is more, drones can finally fly autonomously, even among urban or industrial obstacles. Israeli startup Dronomy developed a sense-and-avoid technology that allows drones to fly themselves. More and more entrepreneurs and startups are turning to drones technology, like Amimon who saved itself from closure when it changed direction to focus on professional photography and video production through the use of drones for footage and supervision.
Israel’s leading business daily, Globes, recently published an article on how Israeli startups are joining surge in drone development:
As befitting the ‘Startup Nation’, Israel has at least ten companies working on the next big development in drone technology not in manufacturing, but in software and supporting hardware.
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Check back with us each night of Hanukkah to learn about another tech trend sparking the Startup Nation!
To find out more about innovative technologies and investment opportunities on our platform, contact our Investor Relations team or visit our website.
