SYNERJET Corp becomes latest company to invest in Wingcopter’s eVTOL drone technology as it targets the healthcare sector

Ger­man drone deliv­ery start­up Wing­copter has secured invest­ment from SYNERJET Corp, a lead­ing busi­ness avi­a­tion spe­cial­ist in Latin Amer­i­ca with oper­a­tions in Brazil, Chile, Colom­bia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Pana­ma.

SYNERJET has made the invest­ment short­ly after join­ing Wingcopter’s Autho­rised Part­ner Pro­gram (WAPP), which allows com­pa­nies to act as a dis­trib­u­tor and local tech­ni­cal sup­port provider for the Wing­copter 198.

As an autho­rised part­ner, SYNERJET wants to tar­get drone oper­a­tors, logis­tics com­pa­nies, and providers in the health­care indus­try.

For Wing­copter, the part­ner­ship rep­re­sents an impor­tant gate­way to the Latin Amer­i­can mar­ket and is a major mile­stone in its glob­al expan­sion plans. The com­pa­ny will ben­e­fit from SYNERJET’s in-depth knowl­edge of the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work as well as its strong rela­tion­ships and expe­ri­ence with local civ­il avi­a­tion author­i­ties.

Tom Plüm­mer, CEO of Wing­copter, said: “We would like to thank SYNERJET’s CEO José Brandão and the whole team for their trust in Wing­copter. Mak­ing this invest­ment right after becom­ing our first Autho­rized Part­ner in Latin Amer­i­ca shows that they under­stand the huge poten­tial of what we are cre­at­ing here at Wing­copter.

“The region offers enor­mous growth oppor­tu­ni­ties for both com­pa­nies and we look for­ward to scal­ing across the con­ti­nent togeth­er.”

SYNERJET CORP is the exclu­sive dis­trib­u­tor for PILATUS AIRCRAFT in Latin Amer­i­ca and CIRRUS AIRCRAFT in north­ern South Amer­i­ca and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, also rep­re­sent­ing JETCRAFT in South Amer­i­ca, besides being an avion­ics Pre­mi­um Deal­er for Hon­ey­well and ENERCRAFT dis­trib­u­tor in Brazil.

The com­pa­ny also owns ser­vice cen­tres in Brazil and Colom­bia and appoint­ed satel­lite cen­ters in Chile and Guatemala. SYNERJET was estab­lished in 2002 and has rep­re­sent­ed the most impor­tant air­plane and heli­copter OEM’s in mul­ti­ple coun­tries since its foun­da­tion.

SYNERJET joins exist­ing investors DRONE FUND, Expa, Xplor­er Cap­i­tal, Futu­ry Cap­i­tal, Hes­sen Kap­i­tal III, and Core­cam Cap­i­tal Part­ners in the run-up of Wingcopter’s Series B invest­ment round in 2022.

José Eduar­do Brandão, CEO of SYNERJET, added: “SYNERJET is very proud to be a Wing­copter Autho­rized Part­ner and new investor in Wing­copter. It demon­strates our com­mit­ment to the UAM indus­try, serv­ing our cus­tomers in Latin Amer­i­ca, and stress­es the trust we have in Tom Plüm­mer and his great team of pro­fes­sion­als. SYNERJET is absolute­ly con­vinced of Wingcopter’s pur­pose-dri­ven approach and ded­i­ca­tion to make a pos­i­tive impact in this world for years to come.”

The lat­est invest­ment from SYNERJET fol­lows on from a sim­i­lar announce­ment ear­li­er this month, when Wing­copter received an invest­ment from DRONE FUND, a Japan-based ven­ture cap­i­tal com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in drone- and air mobil­i­ty-relat­ed star­tups.

The invest­ment is made out of DRONE FUND’s JPY 10 billion/USD 90 mil­lion strong third fund, called DRONE FUND III (offi­cial­ly DRONE FUND III Invest­ment Lim­it­ed Part­ner­ship). It is DRONE FUND’s first invest­ment in eVTOL drone tech­nol­o­gy as well as its first invest­ment in a Ger­man com­pa­ny.

Wing­copter already has deep ties with Japan. Last year, the com­pa­ny signed a part­ner­ship agree­ment with Japan’s biggest air­line ANA. Togeth­er with Wing­copter, ANA plans to build a drone deliv­ery net­work to help improve qual­i­ty of life in rur­al areas across the coun­try. Exten­sive tri­als have already tak­en place in the past months.

In addi­tion, Wing­copter is about to announce the sign­ing of a strate­gic part­ner­ship agree­ment with one of the largest Japan­ese sogo shosha (Japan­ese gen­er­al trad­ing com­pa­nies) through Wingcopter’s Autho­rized Part­ner­ship Pro­gram (WAPP).

The com­pa­ny will act as a dis­trib­u­tor and local tech­ni­cal sup­port provider for Wingcopter’s newest Unmanned Air­craft Sys­tem (UAS), the Wing­copter 198, in Japan. The WAPP is Wingcopter’s glob­al net­work of strate­gic part­ners. It includes drone oper­a­tors, resellers, and agents that are trained and allowed to oper­ate, pro­mote, and dis­trib­ute the world’s first triple-drop deliv­ery drone.

Japan is an attrac­tive mar­ket for Wing­copter as the coun­try is very pro­gres­sive with respect to the inte­gra­tion of drones into every­day life. Already in 2017, the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment recog­nised the extra­or­di­nary poten­tial drones have to offer in many dif­fer­ent sec­tors of life and busi­ness and cre­at­ed a first nation­al com­mer­cial drone roadmap, the so-called Roadmap for the Appli­ca­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy Devel­op­ment of UAVs in Japan, and has con­tin­u­ous­ly adapt­ed it ever since. 

Kotaro Chi­ba, Founder and Man­ag­ing Part­ner of DRONE FUND, said: “We have seen the air logis­tics net­work in Japan devel­op­ing at an accel­er­at­ed pace with the lift­ing of the ban on Lev­el 3 flights in 2021. Wing­copter is one of the most reli­able and cut­ting-edge eVTOL hard­ware, soft­ware and AI providers in the world, with suc­cess­ful expe­ri­ence in Japan. We are hon­oured to be able to invest in such a great team. We look for­ward to work­ing with the Wing­copter team to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of drone logis­tics in Japan and abroad.”