Nearly a decade ago, brothers Aviv and Matteo Shapira co-founded Replay, a company that created a video format for 360-degree replays – the kind of replays that have become an integral part of major sports broadcasts.
Replay caught the attention of Intel, which acquired the company in 2016 for $175 million, and led Aviv and Matteo to a chance meeting with Rubi Liani, the founder of the official Israeli racing league. drones (FRIL).
Liani turned the brothers toward drone racing and planted the idea for their next startup, Xtend, which he helped found.
“As founders, we saw an opportunity to bridge the gap between our experiences,” Aviv told TechCrunch. “We recognized the exceptional skills required to control advanced robots, including drones. Our vision was to develop technology that would make controlling these robots intuitive and accessible, similar to how users interact with smartphones without the need for in-depth technical knowledge.
Xtend provides a platform that allows operators to manage drones and robots developed internally by Xtend and by third-party vendors. With the Xtend platform, operators can directly control drones and robots – optionally with a VR headset – or train AI models to deploy on drones that identify objects and help navigate indoor/outdoor environments. Today, the company announced a $40 million fundraising round led by Chartered Group at a post-money valuation of approximately $110 million.
“Our platform allows drones and robots to handle specific tasks autonomously, such as entering buildings and scanning floors,” Aviv said. “Essentially, this allows common sense decisions – like judging situations or adapting to unforeseen circumstances – to remain in the hands of human supervisors.”
Xtend allows operators to orchestrate teams of drones and robots – not just individual machines – and have them perform certain tasks autonomously, such as moving from one waypoint to another. Meanwhile, Xtend analyzes data from past deployments to recommend actions an operator could take.
The Wolverine drone from Xtend.
“Xos allows a single supervisor to oversee a team of robots performing tasks simultaneously in different locations,” Aviv said. “We believe that full autonomy is not the ultimate goal, but rather a subset of capabilities.”
Xtend pitches its technology as general purpose, aimed at customers in industries ranging from public safety to logistics. But the company relies heavily on military, defense and law enforcement applications.
Christmas of $9 million with the Pentagon’s Office of Irregular Warfare. And Aviv is not shy about expressing his ambitions to move into what he calls “new civilian market opportunities,” such as private and public security.
“Imagine a police officer coordinating drones to search a large area for a suspect,” Aviv said. “Xos can enable these professionals to take advantage of robotic assistance.”
This could be problematic, given that regulations are still largely lacking for use by law enforcement and drones have been used to monitor lawful protests. For example, in 2020, Democrats in Congress raised the alarm that drones and spy planes had been used by then-President Donald Trump’s administration to observe protests in Las Vegas, Minneapolis and Washington, DC, according to Al Jazeera.
In addition, Xtend has recently found itself in the crosshairs of international observers.
Statewatch and Informationsstelle Militarisierung (IMI) found in an analysis that Xtend, among other Israeli companies and military institutions involved in drone deployment, received an R&D grant from the EU’s Horizon Europe fund despite a ban on EU funding for military and defense projects.
Aviv has taken a strongly pro-Israeli stance in the country’s ongoing war with Hamas, telling Ctech that Xtend has “redirected its energies towards 100% support of the IDF.” On its website, which features testimonies from Israeli troops in Gaza, Xtend claims it allows “soldiers to perform precise maneuvers in complex combat scenarios.”
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Aviv said Xtend has been working with the IDF for some time – initially to destroy incendiary balloons coming from the Gaza Strip. Since then, its drones have been used to map and spot underground tunnels dug by Hamas in Gaza – and, more alarmingly, sent on reconnaissance missions equipped with explosive charges such as grenades.
As controversial as it is, the strategy appears to be working for Xtend’s business. The company says it has won $50 million in contracts to date from its customer base of “more than 50” organizations, including government defense agencies.
“We are unlocking the true potential of robotics in complex scenarios, including first response, search and rescue, and critical infrastructure inspection,” Aviv said. “Hundreds of Xtend drone and robot systems are already operationally deployed around the world, and we are continually developing Xos and these platforms to deliver the future of human-machine teaming. »
With this new funding, which brings Xtend’s total to $65 million, Xtend plans to increase its headcount of 110 people in the United States, Israel and Singapore by 50% by the end of the year, moving to a combination of platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service sales models. On the roadmap is international expansion, with a particular focus on Japan.
techcrunch
