“When I was a young pilot I worked for Broome Air Services, out of Broome, and we used to fly little medical supplies and pharmaceuticals to remote indigenous communities in Cessna 210s, and it cost $5000 plus charter [fees], and we’d only fly 30 nautical miles,” Mr Caska said.
“Now you can easily get a drone to do that. The carbon offsets are incredible, and it’s much more efficient, cheaper and low touch as well.”
‘Uber for drones’
Aerologix takes about 40 per cent of the fees and drone pilots can earn between $80 and $150 an hour, depending on the nature of the job.
The platform has been described as an “Uber for drones” and attracted airline pilots who were stood down or had their flying hours reduced because of the pandemic. Since borders have reopened many of the pilots who have returned to their day jobs have kept flying for Aerologix.
“A lot of the pilots are still working with us, maybe not as frequently, but they are really enjoying it as a bit of a side hustle,” Mr Caska said.
Ellerston’s Stuart Robertson said the capital would support Aerologix’s growth ambitions in Australia and abroad.
“Aerologix benefits from being a key technology platform that enables drone pilots to complete complex data captures for organisations that have significant infrastructure,” he said.
The business is a result of Mr Caska’s previous drone photography business Aerolens – which he started after a kite surfing accident ended his career as a pilot – combined with Mr Routhu’s drone swarm management platform R2 Robotronics.
Aerologix previously received seed funding from the UNSW’s 10x Accelerator program and a $1.5 million pre-seed funding from Nightingale partners.
The company has developed software that geolocates a pilot, identifies their licence, credentials, availability and drone type to match them directly to a job.
The engineers have also built a technology that will automatically fly the drone for the pilot to navigate complex jobs such as manoeuvring around telecommunication towers.
The company was also recently onboarded into the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) digital sky platform, meaning both its Aerologix iOS and android apps ingests CASA weather updates, location-based information and maps that show where pilots can and can’t fly.