Celebrated drone trailblazer PrecisionHawk files for bankruptcy

The largely productive year for the drone sector is drawing to a close with the less fortunate news that trailblazing North Carolina startup PrecisionHawk has filed for bankruptcy, and is shuttering the business.

Raleigh-based PrecisionHawk was active in providing drone services to an array of enterprise clients, and facilitating craft integration into wider airspaces through its development of uncrewed air traffic management systems (UTM). 

After initially launching the business under the name WineHawk – a nod to its early work using UAVs to chase birds away from farm crops – the renamed PrecisionHawk built a reputation for effective mapping, surveying, inspection, and other aerial activities.

When news broke of its bankruptcy filing last week, PrecisionHawk reportedly employed about 100 people in its headquarters in Raleigh’s effervescent Glenwood South business district. According to court filings, the $242,667 in unpaid rent the drone startup owes is a small portion of its $17 million in total debt, with offsetting assets totally only $3.8 million.

Unlike Chapter 11, filing bankruptcy under Chapter 7 indicates companies do not seek to continue operating, and leave the chore of reimbursing as much debt possible to court-appointed liquidators. 

In addition to its long-respected drone and UTM work, PrecisionHawk leaves a legacy as one of the first sector startups to attract the big venture capital investment that has since flowed into UAV activity. 

After initially generating a modest $1 million to its 2013 Series A round, the company recruited financial movers as allies to raise over $100 million in 2018, and another $32 million in 2022.

Its attraction to outside investors, and continued success developing its drone services work, led Norwegian UAV inspection and mapping specialist Field to acquire PrecisionHawk last March. 

The announcement of the move celebrated it as enabling Field to enter the US market through its merger with a “leading artificial intelligence and drone technology company for infrastructure management with a premium client list of Fortune 500 companies.” At the time, PrecisionHawk and Field said the Raleigh headquarters would remain opening and operating as before, albeit under the Field name.

But the worm apparently discovered in the purchased apple was clearly responsible for the less happy events that flowed from there. 

In September, Field announced its own internal “organizational changes” that resulted in a top management shakeup. Accompanying that news was the decision to close PrecisionHawk’s Raleigh office, leaving the startup’s continued drone activity in the US in doubt. 

This month’s Chapter 7 filing removed any lingering questions about that.

“We knew it would be a challenge to make PrecisionHawk profitable in the short term,” said Field interim CEO Krister A. Pedersen in the September communiqué — the first indication of how bad PrecisionHawk’s finances really were. “Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t turn it around in time, and we have had to close the office. It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was a necessary one.”

And that, alas, was only the start of the initial descent of the final curtain’s full fall on PrecisionHawk this month.

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