Sunflower Labs raises 16 million dollars

(CONNECT) Sunflower Labs, the developer of the Beehive safety drone system from Stallikon, Switzerland, with additional headquarters in San Carlos, California, has received the performance-based Certificate of Waiver or Authorization after working closely with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The official approval applies to Beehive operations on 99 percent of American territory. In future, customers will be able to legally carry out BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) flights in poor visibility conditions and fly over people and vehicles without individual approval. "Our customers can use Beehive with the confidence that they are one step ahead of the competition in terms of both security and compliance," said Alex Pachikov, co-founder and CEO of Sunflower Labs, in a statement.

Alongside the regulatory approval, Sunflower Labs can also look forward to 16 million dollars in fresh funding. Led by Sequoia Capital and with investments from Alarm.com, DRONE FUND, Gentian Investments, Wakestream Ventures, Atlas Ventures and Daybreak Ventures, the company closes its Series B financing round. The aim is to use the funds to accelerate research in the field of artificial intelligence, expand in the USA, Europe and Latin America with drone solutions and deepen integration with platforms such as Alarm.com.

In future, interested parties will also benefit from the Design your system configuration tool. After entering the address, drones can be placed virtually and their coverage visualized. Response times across the entire site can thus be viewed.

Sunflower Labs develops autonomous security systems that combine hardware with intelligent software. The core product is the Beehive system, which can monitor areas day and night with object detection and tracking, risk detection and a privacy-first design. ce/yes