Drones that save lives... and astound the masses

Aeroknite wants to battle wildfires, and make animated art fly

Hello there,

Today’s startup hits right at the core of what PreSeed Now is all about: trying something new and ambitious that’s right in the sweet spot for the founder’s expertise, and raising their very first equity round.

While we also cover (slightly) later stage companies here, it’s always great when I get to cover startups like this really early. Scroll down to read all about Aeroknite.

Meanwhile, my pipeline of startups is beginning to really fill up for the coming weeks but I always want more. So if you know a startup from anywhere in the UK that I should be talking to, get in touch.

– Martin

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👀 Watch this

It’s usually me doing the interviewing, but I recently stopped by the London HQ of audio startup IRIS to be interviewed for an episode of their podcast.

I discuss the story behind this newsletter, what’s really up with all the metaverse hype, and how startups can communicate better. Take a look.

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Aeroknite wants to fight wildfires and astound the masses

Amazon might not have managed to bring its much-hyped Prime Air delivery system to market yet, but drones have found genuinely transformative uses in everything from cinematography to warfare. Now an aerospace engineer in the North of England wants to push them even further with his startup Aeroknite.

Yusuff Yusuff and his team have developed two drone technologies: a new kind of hologram display for visual arts and ads in the sky, and a fire-fighting drone designed to tackle the sadly accelerating problem of wildfires around the world.

Genuinely early stage—they’ve developed the tech and are now starting to productise it as they explore product-market fit opportunities—Aeroknite is currently raising a pre-seed round. Let’s dig into what they’re actually building…

Holograms in the sky

You’ve probably seen videos of swarms of display drones at events around the world for entertainment and advertising purposes, powered by technology from companies like Intel and Drone Show. They’re impressive, but rely on each drone providing a single light, which aligns with other drones via software to display a picture, message, or performance of dancing lights in the sky. 

Aeroknite’s approach is different. A spinning LED strip on a single drone creates an optical illusion of an image in the sky, which can be animated. Yusuff explains how it works: