Drone logistics company Aviant has announced the launch of its home delivery service, Kyte. Drones will now deliver groceries, takeaway food, and non-prescription medicines to sparsely populated areas and vacation homes in Norway. In addition, Aviant has landed $1 million in funding from Innovation Norway to autonomously deliver vital prescription medicines directly from pharmacies to people in remote and suburban areas.
Founded by Lars Erik Fagernæs, Herman Øie Kolden, and Bernhard Paus Græsdal at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2020, Aviant has operated over 2,500 autonomous flights, covering more than 35,000 km in Norway and Sweden. During the pandemic, the company helped transport COVID-19 tests and blood samples between district hospitals and central hospitals in Norway.
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Aviant’s drones, certified under EU regulations to operate autonomous flights within the union, can fly as far as 120 km in a straight line. In more practical terms, the company can offer its drone delivery services within a 30 km radius for return flights, compared to the 2-3 km offered by other providers such as Google Wing or Manna Drone Delivery.
This speed and efficiency are critical for Aviant because it is targeting its services in areas where mobility can be challenging due to long distances and factors like bad roads or severe weather. As Fagernæs explains:
Our technology proved critical for rural healthcare services during the pandemic, where winter road closures meant our drones were the only link between COVID-19 test sites and laboratories in Central Norway. Now, with the launch of Kyte and our funding from Innovation Norway, Luminar Ventures, and Bring Ventures, we are able to provide people in remote and hard-to-reach areas with the groceries and medical supplies they need, directly to their doorstep, with no traffic restrictions and minimal climate emissions.
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Fagernæs says that customers can request drone delivery through the Kyte app, which is available for both iOS and Android devices. Once the order is placed, a drone will be loaded with the ordered items at Kyte’s home base. The drone will then autonomously deliver the package and return to base. So far, Kyte has made deliveries covering a distance of more than 4,000 km, with an average delivery time of 24 minutes.
It’s worth highlighting that Aviant raised a seed round of $2.4 million in September 2022, led by Bring Ventures, the venture arm of the Norwegian postal service. The company is now planning to open a second base in Norway that will enable it to serve 20,000-30,000 remote vacation homes with door-to-door deliveries.
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