Medical cargo drone startup Redwing Labs raises $1mn in seed round

February 17, 2021: The Bengaluru-based drone logistics startup Redwing Labs has raised $1million in a seed investment round led by ITI Growth Opportunities Fund alongside Asymmetry Ventures, Beyond Capital Fund, Cloud Capital & LetsVenture. 

"We're also elated to on-board some incredible angels including veterans from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google & Microsoft as part of this round," noted Anshul Sharma, co-founder, Redwing Labs in a LinkedIn post.

"As a flavour of candour, the journey for this drone logistics company has been quite challenging especially due to the intersection of highly regulated healthcare & aviation industry. I also think there needs to be a recalibration of expectations for folks thinking about drone delivery of pizza in metro cities being the first wave of adoption. Our focus for the next 12-18 months will be on safe, reliable and repeatable operations in a phased-out manner and to build trust with the regulators and general public along the way. In parallel, the priority is also to build upon our end-to-end delivery tech-stack, aka a drone airline," he added. 

ITI Growth Opportunities Fund is an early-stage investment fund Investment Trust of India, a financial services group backed by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries director Sudhir Valia. The startup will use the capital to further develop its technology stack and build key partnerships in healthcare, reports TechCircle.

Redwing Labs not only aim to automate aerial logistics but also design, build and deploy drone logistics infrastructure for delivering medical or any critical supplies efficiently. They use hybrid VTOL vertical takeoff and landing drones and their proprietary operation stack to control multiple aircraft from one ground control station.

Rishabh Gupta, co-founder, Redwing labs, told ITLN, "We are looking for B2B partnerships with logistics and pharma companies to be in and assist in the BVLOS trials from beginning. Along with that, we are looking for states that actively want to pursue this opportunity that which change their healthcare supply chains.  From the technology side, the idea is to have as many as reliable flights and system for moving medical goods."

In a recent webinar organised by Indian Transport & Logistics News on cargo drones, Gupta had said, "We can currently travel around 50 km with a two kg payload but it's only the capital that sort of restricts you in terms of what you can build."

India is conducting its very own trials in various states and Redwing Labs has been a part of one of 20 consortia approved by the DGCA.

Drones carrying Covid-19 vaccines
With Covid-19 vaccines already rolled out for nation-wide phased vaccination, medical cargo drones are expected to play a role in the last mile even though the regulations will take some time to take shape. 

Gupta said, "We do have the capability to move the Covid-19 vaccines but the current regulations don't allow for BVLOS flight as trials are yet to be conducted. Though the visual line of flights is allowed, to deliver anything remotely useful you will need to travel beyond the visual line of sight. By the end of this year/ mid, next year is reasonably when we can start seeing some aspect of commercial opportunities start." 

About its capacity to carry Covid-19 vaccines he said, "We have already partnered with logistics players like Mahindra Logistics, who are experts in moving cold chain supplies. They are in the process of developing payload boxes that will carry the vaccines or any sort of medical supplies that require temperature control. Assuming that the payload capacity is about 2 kilograms, assuming each vaccine vial contains about 10 ml of liquid and one vial would be about 15-20 grams, including glass, this will obviously vary depending on the manufacturer, we can carry up to 60-70 vials per trip."