SINGAPORE and TOKYO – Skycatch, a drone mapping and 3D analytics platform, announced today its new global initiatives for helping companies and governments worldwide approach new ways of using their frontier digital twin technology to build and maintain climate-resilient infrastructure.
“Digital twin technology is helping construction and mining companies worldwide reduce CO2 emissions by preventing design inconsistencies and providing complete transparency of the project across the board,” said Christian Sanz, founder and CEO of Skycatch.
With the world’s most populous and fastest-growing economies, Asia-Pacific emits the largest volume of greenhouse gas, producing about half the world’s carbon dioxide according to the IMF. Skycatch is rapidly expanding across Asia and Pacific, which currently accounts for half its market. The company plans to collaborate with ADB Ventures and its partners in Japan, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand to make infrastructure projects – including those for renewable energy – more resilient and leverage those solutions throughout the region.
“Asian Development Bank (ADB) aims to play a catalytic role to enable technology in infrastructure projects, which result in reduced carbon footprints and increased safety and operational efficiency,” said ADB’s Daniel Hersson in a recent TechCrunch article. “The enterprise-grade Skycatch technology for capturing, processing and analyzing high accuracy 3D drone data is a critical part to accomplishing that mission.”
Skycatch’s drone-based computer vision platform for the construction and mining industries reduces more than 30% of the rework by preventing design inconsistencies and providing complete transparency of the project.
“Companies can use digital twin technology to help detect and prevent mistakes from happening during the building process to minimize waste,” said Sanz. “At Skycatch, we’re on a mission to revolutionize operational and cost efficiency in infrastructure-related projects worldwide through our drone-based 3D computer vision technology.”
Skycatch recently closed its Series C round funding, culminating on $25 million raised, led by ADB Ventures and Wavemaker Labs. Other new investors include I2BF, Falkon, and Gaingels.
“ADB’s Sydney-based team is already piloting Skycatch drone-based technology in a project to create highly accurate digital twins of an infrastructure upgrade project during its construction phase. This has the potential to use the technology throughout entire life cycle of an infrastructure project enabling project implementation that is safer, more efficient, avoid rework, and reduce overall project carbon footprint,” said Lotte Schou-Zibell, Regional Director of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Pacific Liaison and Coordination Office in Sydney.
About Skycatch
Skycatch is a drone data company based in the Bay Area founded in 2013 to provide aerial data capture, processing, visualization, and analysis tools to the world’s largest companies on their most demanding work sites. Over 10,000 construction and mining sites in more than 20 countries, including Japan, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Australia, Canada, and the United States, use Skycatch’s solutions. For more information, visit https://skycatch.com/.
About ADB Ventures
Set up by the Asian Development Bank, ADB Ventures is its venture arm that supports and invests in early-stage technology companies solving large unsolved problems in emerging Asia. ADB Ventures typically invests across seed and early stages, providing leading technology companies with risk capital, deep insights, and networks. For more information, please visit https://ventures.adb.org/.
About Wavemaker Partners
Wavemaker Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm dual-headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore. Wavemaker is one of the most active early-stage investors in Southern California and Southeast Asia and has invested in over 360 companies in the last 17 years. For more information, please visit https://wavemaker.vc/.
