Friday, September 21, 2018

Welcome to Silicon Valley: Drone Startup Burns Through $118 Million, Shuts Down



By Robert Wenzel

There are some very smart people in Silicon Valley venture capital but also a lot of clowns. Think the bell curve.

Airware, a San Francisco-based, startup in the drone sector has shut down after blowing through
$118 million.

The firm was heavily Silicon Valley-funded. How can you hand over money to a startup and not understand its burn rate, prospects for generating revenue and how it was spending money.

TechCrunch reports:
Airware will serve as cautionary tale of startup overspending in hopes of finding product-market fit. Had it been more frugal, saved cash to extend its runway, and given corporate clients more time to figure out how to use drones, Airware might have stayed afloat. Sometimes, even having the most prestigious investors can’t save a startup from mismanagement.
Our ex-employee source concludes that “I think having $118M in the bank led Airware to charge ahead and sink tons of money into force-it-to-work methods rather than exercise a bit of patience and wait for the inevitable advance of hardware to catch up.
They had a knack for hiring extremely talented and expensive people from places like Google, Autodesk, there was even SpaceX and NASA alumni there. 
They spared no expense ever.
Thank you, Federal Reserve.

I am not sure there is much time left but nutty money is still flowing out here. If you need cash for your business, I suggest you hop on the next flight out here while the good times are still rolling. Hell, get a First Class ticket and you might be able to close your funding on the plane before you even land.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of





2 comments:

  1. How about a federal bailout for environmentally friendly ... solar powered drones!!! That's the ticket!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I own a real business with actual(software) products that make actual profits. No investors are interested in that.

    ReplyDelete