A venture capital firm just bet £2.5 million on oil companies using drones
MMC has invested the sum in five-year-old London start-up Sky-Futures, which uses drones to help monitor and inspect oil and gas facilities.
The company, which was founded by two UK army veterans and a former British Airways pilot, already works with majors including BP, BG Group, Shell, and Statoil. Sky-Futures has also just won approval to fly in US airspace, opening up a huge market of it.
MMC's Simon Menashy said Sky-Futures' technology "changes the game for platform operators in terms of cost, safety and depth of analysis."
The £2.5 million funding is Sky-Futures first investment from an institution and is thought to be one of the biggest early-stage investments in a drone company in Europe. ASOS founder Nick Robertson was an early investor in the business.