SkyDrive secures additional Series C round funding now exceeding 15 billion yen

Sky­Drive has secured addi­tion­al fund­ing in its Series C round, and its cumu­la­tive fund­ing now exceeds 15 bil­lion yen as of 6 April 2023.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, the com­pa­ny suc­cess­ful­ly raised 9.6 bil­lion yen in Series C fund­ing. Fol­low­ing this announce­ment, MUFG Bank, one of Japan’s largest finan­cial insti­tu­tions, increased its cap­i­tal, and a tar­get fund, includ­ing Mura­ta Man­u­fac­tur­ing, also invest­ed in the com­pa­ny.

Sky­Drive raised a total of 9.6 bil­lion yen in the Series C round of financ­ing through a third-par­ty allot­ment of new shares and bank loans to 13 com­pa­nies includ­ing MUFG Bank, bring­ing its cumu­la­tive total raised to 14.7 bil­lion yen.

The com­pa­ny is devel­op­ing fly­ing cars, and car­go drones capa­ble of trans­port­ing objects weigh­ing 30 kg, hav­ing com­plet­ed its Series B Round in Sep­tem­ber 2020.

Sky­Drive signed a col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment with Osa­ka Pre­fec­ture in Sep­tem­ber 2021, and in Octo­ber 2021, Japan’s first appli­ca­tion for Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of fly­ing cars was accept­ed by the Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Tourism (MLIT).

In Jan­u­ary 2022, the com­pa­ny exhib­it­ed at CES 2022, the world’s largest tech­nol­o­gy trade show, with a view to expand­ing our busi­ness over­seas, and was select­ed as Reuters’ ‘Best of CES 30’.

The com­pa­ny signed an agree­ment with Toy­ota City in June 2021 to pro­mote drone util­i­sa­tion and its inte­gra­tion in soci­ety, and became the first Japan­ese drone man­u­fac­tur­er to acquire JIS Q 9100:2016 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for Qual­i­ty Man­age­ment Sys­tem in Novem­ber 2021.

Sky­Drive CEO Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa com­ment­ed: “Since com­plet­ing Round B Financ­ing two years ago, Sky­Drive has been pro­mot­ing the full-scale launch of its car­go drone busi­ness and the devel­op­ment of its com­mer­cial vehi­cle, the SD-05.

“We are hav­ing var­i­ous dis­cus­sions with the Kan­sai Elec­tric Pow­er Com­pa­ny, Kin­tet­su Group Hold­ings and Res­ona Group to start busi­ness in the Kan­sai area, we are col­lab­o­rat­ing with SCSK Cor­po­ra­tion on soft­ware devel­op­ment, and with Suzu­ki Motor Cor­po­ra­tion on mass pro­duc­tion and poten­tial sales in India and oth­er parts of Asia.

“In the field of finance, Sum­it­o­mo Mit­sui Trust Bank and MUFG Bank are sup­port­ing us, while Pega­sus Tech Ven­tures is help­ing us as a Ven­ture Cap­i­tal firm con­nect­ing Japan and the rest of the world through the launch of air mobil­i­ty ser­vices in 2025.”