Japan: DroNext “Morphs into SkyScape” and Vertiport Infrastructure

Osa­ka-based drone com­pa­ny, DroNext, is mor­ph­ing in to the name Sky­Scape and become the lat­est play­er in Japan’s eVTOL indus­try, reports akihabaranews.com. It aims to enter the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) ver­ti­port mar­ket with finan­cial sup­port from Drone Fund and oth­er investors.

In an exclu­sive inter­view with Aki­habara News, Sky­Scape Founder and Pres­i­dent, Asa Que­sen­ber­ry, revealed, “While drones, aquat­ic drones, and our oper­a­tor teams are a cru­cial part of our busi­ness, the real focus with­in the sec­tor is on facil­i­ty and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment for the advanced air mobil­i­ty mar­kets here in Japan and abroad.”

He con­tin­ued, “Our team has part­nered with some major cor­po­rate groups here in Japan to begin test­ing our first gen­er­a­tion ver­ti­port inte­gra­tion plat­form,” or VIP for short. The name Sky­Scape was cho­sen to show an ambi­tion to go beyond the drone indus­try and “shape the skies” as the world enters the new era of AAM.

Que­sen­ber­ry says he is unfazed by the grow­ing com­pe­ti­tion con­struct­ing Japan’s ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture. “The busi­ness mod­el we’ve come up with — the way we’re look­ing at imple­ment­ing our ver­ti­port devel­op­ment,” he explained, “doesn’t put us in com­pe­ti­tion with oth­ers. Instead, it allows Sky­Scape to col­lab­o­rate with a lot of oth­er com­pa­nies.”

Que­sen­ber­ry says his company’s approach to ver­ti­port devel­op­ment will be char­ac­terised by “true mod­u­lar­i­ty” as well as afford­able prices and the abil­i­ty to inte­grate with either exist­ing infra­struc­tures or at Green­field sites. He also explains that SkyScape’s busi­ness mod­el will not encom­pass the own­er­ship of ver­ti­ports.

Asa Que­sen­ber­ry

The com­pa­ny will be announc­ing soon it has closed its pre-seed invest­ment round, with Drone Fund being the lead­ing investor. The pre­cise lev­el of fund­ing has not been revealed. Although, Que­sen­ber­ry says the amount is “enough for us to real­ly get mov­ing.”

While eVTOL infra­struc­ture is now its lead focus, Sky­Scape will hold on to its lega­cy drone ser­vice and con­sult­ing clients which the com­pa­ny has built up over the last five years.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.dronextglobal.com

(News Source: https://akihabaranews.com)

(Top image: MVRDV)