Funding rounds, partnerships, layoffs, and the market math underneath the drone headlines.
A Santa Clara startup called Hyfix Spatial Intelligence just pulled in $15 million to build an American-designed system-on-a-chip that folds flight control, high-precision positioning, secure communications, and onboard compute into a single piece of U.S.-manufactured silicon. Craft Ventures led the round. The pitch is that this will be the American brain for drones and robots…
A Ukrainian company called PAWELL has figured out how to take battery cells designed for electric vehicles and stuff them into fixed-wing drones. The result: operational range jumped from roughly 19 miles to 122 miles on a single charge, as Euro Maidan Press reports. One of those upgraded drones has already destroyed a Russian Buk-M1…
WSJ reveals Tesla, Figure AI humanoid robots depend on Chinese parts. Congress is using the same ban strategy it deployed against DJI drones.
FCC Public Notice DA 26-314 asks the drone industry to fix spectrum access, licensing delays, and Counter-UAS legal barriers before the 2027 exemption cliff.
China is imposing some of the harshest drone restrictions on the planet, even as its government pours billions into building a “low-altitude economy” around the same technology. The New York Times reports that new regulations taking effect in May will require real-name registration for all drones, advance permits for flights in restricted zones covering most…
Lucid Bots Drones just closed a $20 million Series B to keep up with demand it says it can’t fulfill fast enough. For a company that spent five years selling its first 100 robots, that’s a different kind of problem. The Charlotte, North Carolina company makes the Sherpa cleaning drone and the Lavo ground robot,…
Theme parks like Disney World across the U.S. spent years watching unauthorized drones buzz their crowds with essentially no legal way to stop them. That finally changed in December 2025, and the industry is still figuring out what it means, as reported by Facilities Dive. The Safer Skies Act, embedded in Sections 8601 through 8607…
Freefly Systems will hold its 5th annual Freefly Fest on August 19, 2026, just outside Seattle, Washington. Chief Revenue Officer Matt Isenbarger announced the date on LinkedIn, describing the event as a day of hands-on demos, BBQ, and tours of Freefly Systems HQ. No venue has been announced yet — Freefly’s own shipping page lists…
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