CHENNAI: Using drones for urgent delivery of medicine is talked about a lot. So is the use of drones in e-commerce and quick commerce deliveries. But, aside from the hype, much is not happening on the ground or, to be more precise, the sky. However, things are expected to change with the viable commercial applications drone-deliveries projected to grow. Delhi-based Skye Air is betting on it.
The startup provides drone delivery as a service for healthcare and moving along to agriculture, e-commerce and logistics sectors. It also has a data intelligence platform for freight management. Ankit Kumar, co-founder and chief executive of Skye Air, said the use of medical drones has huge potential for expanding the reach of healthcare facilities in sub urban settlements apart from rural parts of the country.
“This would increase the radius of healthcare services from 10 km around the hospital to maybe 20-30 km. This can provide more accessibility for medicines to reach patients for diagnostic samples, medicines or vaccines. This is easy instead of a doctor or patient traveling to the centers,” he said.
The company has bagged eight healthcare medicine delivery government tenders across the country from AIIMS Rajkot to Central Leprosy Teaching and Research Institute in Tamil Nadu. The list includes AIIMS Rajkot and Bhubaneswar, AIIHPH Kolkata, RLTRI Bankura, and RLTRI Aska. Its StarLiner and Artemis drone models have started transport of medical supplies using temperature-controlled boxes in these places. Ankit Kumar says private players deploying drones is crucial for scaling up and bringing down the prices of trips.
Only public-sector players and the government have stepped in and invested in drone delivery, he said. “But it requires both public- and private-sector players as well as scaling up of medical drones delivery to make it a viable and profitable model,” he added.
The company conducted the beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) medicine delivery flight with Flipkart for 104 km between Baruipur and Medinipur in West Bengal. It claims the flight time reduced 80% compared to conventional means and is one of the longest medical drone drops. Skye Air currently has 35 drones and plans to ramp up its fleet size to 100 in six months. It has raised $1.7 million from venture capitalists in a seed round.
It is in the process of securing a Series A round, which is expected in a few weeks. It is also working to procure bigger drones of 50 kg for enterprise customers. Current drones have a payload capacity of 5kg and travel 50-80 km. According to Ankit, the adoption of drones will grow where it is time-sensitive, time-critical or if the volumes are low.
The demand for drone-based delivery in e-commerce and quick commerce is real and is likely to grow fast in the next two years. He said the drones deliver faster, easier and in some cases the unit economics can compete with ground transportation. Currently, the hub-to-spoke model is being explored for drone cargoes. Ankit says the cost puzzle is yet to be solved.
However, the startup bets on high-value agri commodities like apples, cashews, and white tea for first mile delivery from farm to central location. Ankit believes there is a market for drone e-commerce and it is possible to compete on prices.
(Article written by Ankit Kumar, Co-founder and Chief Executive of Skye Air; views are of the author's own)