Sierra Nevada buys drone maker Volansi after VC funding dries up

WASHINGTON — Sierra Nevada Company on Monday introduced it has purchased industrial drone maker Volansi in a money deal.

Sierra Nevada’s buy contains all of Volansi’s mental property and property, together with the corporate’s Voly-50 and Voly-T drones and its manufacturing facility in Bend, Oregon.

Tim Owings, government vp for mission options and applied sciences at Sierra Nevada, informed reporters on the Affiliation of the U.S. Military’s annual convention in Washington that Volansi misplaced its enterprise capital funding and went by means of a foreclosures. Negotiations on the sale began about two months in the past, he mentioned.

Owings declined to reveal the value of the transaction, noting solely it was “considerably much less” than what different drone corporations have bought for just lately. The deal closed Sept. 30, Sierra Nevada mentioned.

Volansi will function underneath a brand new title inside Sierra Nevada to concentrate on the corporate’s unmanned plane operations, however is not going to be a subsidiary, Owings mentioned. Sierra Nevada remains to be making an attempt to determine on the brand new title.

Owings mentioned about 30 key Volansi workers, together with engineers, are additionally coming to the corporate after the acquisition. Sierra Nevada will probably be including extra workers to this effort.

Volansi began with a concentrate on logistics drones however later moved into the protection world. Final December, the corporate teamed up with Sierra Nevada to work on the Military Future Tactical Unmanned Methods Increment 2 program, or FTUAS.

As a result of Sierra Nevada had already been working with Volansi, Owings mentioned, they had been a “pure match” to purchase the foundering firm.

“From the very starting, everybody noticed this as probably the most viable consequence,” Owings mentioned.

Hannan Parvizian, chief government and co-founder of Volansi, is not going to be becoming a member of Sierra Nevada. When requested if Will Roper, the previous Air Drive acquisition chief who sat on Volansi’s board of administrators, or any of Volansi’s different advisors could be coming, Owings mentioned no, including that the corporate has its personal advisors.

Sierra Nevada will honor Volansi’s present contracts with corporations akin to pharmaceutical agency Merck, in line with Owings.