Verizon announced on Thursday that they have purchased Skyward, which is a drone operations and management company. Verizon says that this purchase of Skyward will allow them to build on their strategy and to drive innovation in the IoT world. In their press release, the company notes that companies “rely on Skyward for managing operations, improving safety and lowering operating costs” and with their purchase of Skyward, companies will be able to use a single source for “integrating, managing, and wireless connecting their drone operations”. Making it a much easier workflow for users around the world.
Drones are becoming a pretty important part of many businesses, and not just those that are delivering physical products to customers, like Amazon. In fact, a few wireless carriers used drones to test out their network coverage in Houston ahead of the Super Bowl earlier this month. This made it easier to test out their network in every inch of the stadium, instead of having a group of people sit in each seat in the stadium and testing the network themselves. It’s cheaper, and much faster. And as regulation for drones starts to heat up and make it easier to use drones both large and small, companies are going to be looking to other companies like Skyward. Which makes this a pretty good investment for Verizon, especially as they are looking to get more involved in the Internet of Things or IoT space.
Verizon did not disclose how much they paid for Skyward, which is still seen as a startup, but it’s likely a pretty hefty sum. Skyward raised about $8.15 million since it was founded back in 2012. So it’s a fairly decent sized startup, but not as large as something like Uber or Snap, then again a company like Skyward isn’t being used by everyone on the planet anyways. Verizon has been making plenty of big investments lately, after buying AOL, Yahoo, and now Skyward. Although Skyward is likely the most interesting out of those three, and also likely to be the cheapest, and unlikely to give shareholders a headache like Yahoo has done.