This years GENIUS NY Pitch Finals premieres on October 26 at noon. Watch our 5 finalists pitch their innovative startups to a panel of judges and see who is awarded $1 million.

A Q&A with Josh Reidy, CEO at Airtonomy

Company HQ: Headquartered in Grand Forks, North Dakota
Team Size: 25 – 30 employees
Focus: Drone Data Management
Website: www.airtonomy.ai

Tell us about your company:
 
Airtonomy enables its customers to collect data uniformly using autonomous vehicles, in particular drones. We do that by making complex flight possible with push the button. In doing do so it is a matter of hours to train a Part 107 certified individual, such as a wind technician or a security guard or a power lineman to operate drones safely and also operate them consistently. Meaning, that regardless of who operates the drone, the outcome, the sensor data is highly uniform. By doing that on the front end, not only do we allow anyone to be able to capture the information, we also enable that data to be processed automatically using machine learning. By putting those two pieces together, there is an end-to-end workflow that is literally push button easy, fully automated that generates a large volume of data which is in turn actionable intelligence for an organization.

When and how did Airtonomy start?
 
I quit my day job in 2018 to begin building this company and we’ve been going strong every since. We were fortunate enough to be the first technology startup funded by Microsoft’s TechSpark program. I was fortunate enough to meet their leadership team and not only was their support instrumental but it gave me inspiration to keep going after leaving my day job and seeing this reality come true.

Where did the idea for your startup come from?
 
My co-founder and I all worked at the University of North Dakota in various capacities. One co-founder was a faculty member in computer science, another co-founder was chair of the aviation department and I was the University’s Chief Information Officer and oversaw research computing. The three of us have various skill-sets with a common focus and we worked together on a prior project so this was natural for us to go down this pathway. We were awarded a grant called The UAS Data Lifecycle as part of the University of North Dakota regional data hub which conceptually morphed into what Airtonomy is today.

Who is your ideal customer?
 
We work predominately with utilities, starting with publicly traded and also working with cooperatives for the more rural areas. We also work with energy companies and then we have some technology partners that have assisted us, such as Microsoft and Excel Energy, a regional energy company that we’ve worked with. Finding those types of partners, like National Grid would be amazing.

What can we expect from your company in the near future?
 
We believe there is a point at which drones and autonomous vehicles can really take off and scale, but we also believe the industry hasn’t found that point yet. We feel like if we haven’t found that point yet, we’ve found something very close to that, where the next contracts we’ll be signing are to take our methodology that is in practice with one application such as wind turbine inspections or oil tank inspections, customers who have seen the process and scalability, repeatability, adaptability, will look to expand that across their enterprise. Meaning there is a common software framework for all autonomous vehicle operations. What would be considered success is to see large energy and utility companies that have adopted Airtonomy moving across their enterprise and are connecting various drone hardware, sensor hardware and various analysis routines for literally any purpose that you can imagine.

Why are you excited about GENIUS NY?
 
We are very proud of where we are from and what we’ve accomplished, but we also realize that there is a next step. We feel like GENIUS NY and this area constitutes that next step to provide great access to capital, greater access to people, not only job candidates but expertise that can help us become a better company and serve our customers better. If we want to operate on the national and international stage, this is the type of next step we need.

What are you most looking forward to while staying in Syracuse?
 
We look forward to branching out into the community. We have a trip planned to the New York UAS Test Site which we are looking forward to and learning more about the role of Central New York in unmanned aircraft systems.
 
What will you do with the one million grand prize?
 
The easiest answer to that is to focus on our growth and our customers and acquiring talent. We are at a point that for us to grow, we have to add employees, predominantly computer scientist, software developers and roboticist.
 
Check out Aironomy’s career page for job opportunities.

Last month the new GENIUS NY companies had the opportunity to tour and speak with some of CNY’s top founders. Teams visited Jeff Rubin at Sidearm Sports, Jeff Knauss at Digital Hyve, Devin Daly at Spincar and Raymond Moore at TCG Player. These companies reflect the startup growth Syracuse has been seeing over the past few years and is proof that founders can build a successful startup in Syracuse instead of a popular tech hub like the Silicon Valley. The founders talked about success in the area with top talent coming from Syracuse University, Cornell and Clarkson, investment with now two local VC firms, as well as community resources and support.

Our tour wouldn’t be complete without meeting with Jeff Knauss, founder of Digital Hyve where we learned how him and Jacob Tanner grew their business in Downtown Syracuse to a second location in Rochester NY. We're very lucky to have these two entrepreneurial ambassadors in our city.
Did you know the two co-founders met at a Tech Garden networking event?

Company HQ: Headquartered in Hamburg, Germany R&D and Production in Hungary, Air Fleet Training in London, Development office in Spain
Team Size: 27
Focus: A tech ori­en­tat­ed aviation company
Website: airialrobotics.com

Tell us about your company?
We have developed an aircraft that is safer and performs better than existing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) by merging a helicopter with a gyrocopter. What this does is allow the aircraft to act like a helicopter at low speeds, when it goes to gyrocopter mode, the aircraft flies like a fixed wing airplane so it can move fast and it can go for long distance. Our main rotor diameter is 2.6 meters (8.5ft). The version that is ready to go to market now has a maximum takeoff weight of 2kg (4.4lbs).

What are your drones used for?
We are addressing very specifically 3 use cases:

1. Use case number one is agriculture where you use a special version of the drone for spraying and seeding.
2. The second vertical we are looking at is transportation of goods which includes heavy lift capacity that can also be used at high altitude and medical transportation such as drugs and samples from hospitals.
3. The third is surveillance where we focus mainly on mapping, search and rescue and disaster response. The benefit is that we can carry much heavier sensors than an average drone can do today.

Who is your ideal customer?
Our ideal customers are private companies, government agencies such as police, firefighters, military, medical. Ideally our customer is someone flying drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) long distance over highly populated areas.

Where did the idea for your Startup come from?
Our CTO is an aviation nerd. He was involved in multi-copters and also fixed wing vertical takeoff and landing. When he analyzed (current drones in the market) what he was asked to do, he realized it was not the safest or the best way to design the drone. He wanted to build the safest drone that can carry the biggest amount of payload. On November 7, 2017 is when he started on the basic development of our technology.

What can we expect from Airial Robotics in the near future?
We plan to develop a truly international global business, with manufacturing in Europe and the United States. We will be able to scale the expansion of logistics services with our transportation drone and make a big impact within the agriculture sector. Currently, our agricultural drone has 25kg (55.1lbs) takeoff weight (the first of its kind). We are planning on building a 100 – 200kg (220.4 - 440.9lbs) drone. A 200kg (440.9lbs) drone can carry more than 100kg (220.4lbs) of liquid so we can spray large areas very efficiently.

It’s our goal to grow this company to 150 employees by 2024 and expand our product range to a drone from 4kg (8.8lbs) takeoff weight which is agile and can be used for police and response forces all the way up to 600kg (1,322.7lbs) which will be a two seated air taxi.

Why are you excited about GENIUS NY?
When we see what’s happening here, we have never seen anything like it in the world. The infrastructure, the people behind it all, the amount of support that is given to us, the effort to make us feel good and successful is just an amazing experience.

With GENIUS NY on our side, we feel we are getting accelerated and we feel with this infrastructure and people together, we can make this successful. And it’s motivating. Our whole team in Europe waits every week on my report in anticipation of what’s new and what we are doing.

What are you most looking forward to while staying in Syracuse?
We want to understand what makes this area special. We’ve never been to Central NY. It’s an exciting cultural site we want to explore. Long term, we would like to become members of the community and build friendships and partnerships.

What will you do with the $1 Million grand prize?
Very simple, invest it into staff. Invest it into development projects and generate a solid U.S. business. A business that is sustainable, growing and also giving back to the community that has invested into us.

GENIUS NY Finals Night will include all five finalists pitching for the grand prize of $1M. Stay tuned for more information coming soon!

Five Teams from Around World to Receive a Total of $3 Million in Investments and Participate in Year-Long Accelerator in CNY
 
Syracuse – GENIUS NY, a business accelerator program at CenterState CEO’s Tech Garden, today announced the five finalists companies selected for its fifth round. These startup unmanned systems and robotics companies will participate in the year-long program and will compete for a total of $3 million in direct investment, with one grand prize of up to $1 million and four $500,000 awards. The companies were selected from a pool of more than 600 submissions. Finalists include teams with international and New York state representation.
 
The five companies will move into The Tech Garden, in Syracuse, this month and will begin to refine work on their business cases and pitch before Pitch Finals which will be held on October 20 at the Marriott Syracuse Downtown. 
 
“We look forward to welcoming these teams from around the world to our community so we can support their growth and integrate them into the thriving ecosystem we have developed for the unmanned systems industry,’ said Kara Jones, director of GENIUS NY. “Over the next year, they will receive targeted business development resources and mentoring, that coupled with the state’s high-value investment will ensure their success. It has been incredibly rewarding to see the growth of the teams from previous rounds of the competition and I know this new cohort will join with them to further establish The Tech Garden as the leading place to grow your UAS company.” 
 
The five finalists selected for GENIUS NY 5 are:
 
Airial Robotics (Hamburg, Germany): Airial Robotics develops commercial UAVs for surveillance, logistics and agriculture modeled after gyrocopter/helicopter hybrid that are challenging industry performance limits for safety, payload, range and speed.
 
Airtonomy (Grand Forks, ND): Airtonomy's push-button software automates uniform collection, packaging and analysis of data acquired by autonomous vehicles and sensors, specifically targeting critical energy infrastructure. Airtonomy's rules-based drone data management methodology increases customer return on investment.
 
CarScanner (Krakow, Poland): CarScanner develops a used car inspection robot that autonomously navigates around a car and automatically detects scratches, dents, repainted body surfaces, and other damages with structured light, thermography and machine learning algorithms.
 
Circle Optics (Rochester, NY): Circle Optics develops high-resolution, wide field-of-view imaging systems that enable real-time capture without the time and expense of post-processing required by other multicamera systems. Paired to a UAS this technology can enable immersive telepresence, better autonomy and a platform to run edge applications such as self-localization, object recognition/tracking, as well as volumetric data capture.
 
WindShape (Geneva, Switzerland): WindShape develops indoor weather simulation technology to test and certify drones under controllable and repeatable flight conditions to enable autonomous and scalable drone applications.
 
The year-long competition is the largest business accelerator competition for the UAS industry in the world. Recent announcements by GENIUS NY teams demonstrate the quality of the program, which is funded by Empire State Development. Teams from GENIUS NY continue to hit growth milestones and have attracted outside investments, made connections and established partnerships with local businesses, and have made hires or currently have openings.
 
“These companies were selected from the most competitive pool of applications we have ever seen,” said Jeff Fuchsberg, vice president of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at CenterState CEO. “This year’s applicant pool and high-growth finalists highlight the program’s ability to drive success and impact the rapid growth of participating teams. As round five teams join the innovation ecosystem we have created at The Tech Garden, they too will benefit from a network of resources we’ve established to support startup companies.”  
 
“The success of this program can be seen in the companies that participated in rounds one through four and continue to grow and create jobs in our community,” said Rob Simpson, president of CenterState CEO. “Their continued success supports regional efforts to be a global leader in the unmanned systems industry.”  
 
Since 2017, GENIUS NY has invested $12 million in 22 companies from around the world and brought them to Central New York to participate in the yearlong in-residence accelerator where they receive assistance with product development, business development, as well as networking opportunities with investors and business leaders. Since 2017, GENIUS NY companies have raised more than $40 million in follow-on funding and have created over 50 jobs in New York.
 
Beyond the grand prize investments, participants benefit from access to some of the region's premier startup programming, including business planning, industry specific mentorship, and access to vetted service providers offering startup friendly terms. Participants are also integrated into the larger regional effort to grow unmanned aerial systems in Central New York and the Mohawk Valley, and will have access to world-leading infrastructure and testing assets. Participants also have opportunities to connect with investors for follow on funding.
 
The advancement of the GENIUS NY program builds on the progress of CNY Rising, the region’s award-winning strategic plan to generate robust economic growth and community development.
 
Throughout the program, teams will engage with community leaders, mentors, and advisors from leading companies in Central New York while also participating in tourism activities. The goal is to encourage all participants to put down roots and stay in the region following the conclusion of the program.
 
To learn more about GENIUS NY visit www.geniusny.com.

Empire State Development (ESD) today announced that the application window is now open for the fifth round of GENIUS NY– the world’s largest business accelerator competition focused on unmanned systems. ​