A graduate of GenerationS to receive a grant from NTI worth RUB 244M
The interdepartmental working group under the presidium of the Council for Economic Modernization and Innovative Development approved a grant of 244 million rubles for the implementation of SKYF project, which is an unmanned aerial carrier platform for cargo transportation and agricultural aviation. Grant is to be awarded as part of AeroNet roadmap within the National Technology Initiative. The protocol on the grant approval was registered with the Russian Venture Company on Friday, 6 October.
The project is implemented by OKB Aviaresheniya, a graduate of GenerationS-2014 Industrial track. Grant funds will be spent on the development of an unmanned aerial cargo platform for vertical take-off and landing and launch of small-scale production. At the first stage, which is the first three years, the company will continue developing the platform, adapt it for agricultural needs and finalize logistics tasks. A pilot implementation with the specified key performance indicators is planned as well: an area of several thousand hectares is subject to treatment and dozens of flights have to be made. The second stage is launch of batch production.
“We have been participating in Aeronet's working group from the very beginning, which helped to accelerate the development of SKYF project. While preparing documents for the NTI grant, we passed several expert appraisal levels, considered a lot of comments and expert opinions, which made our project more systemic. NTI’s grant will enable us to move much faster by launching several processes in parallel. But for NTI support, we would have advanced much slower,"said Ilya Rodin, partner of FPI venture fund, which invested in SKYF project.
“The National Technology Initiative was created to ensure leadership of Russian companies in the emerging global markets of the future. When choosing projects for support, we give preference to those which have not only a profound business model and a new technological solution but also a special vision which enables them to claim its rightful place in these new markets. The engineering company OKB "Aviaresheniya", developer of SKYF air cargo platform, has such a vision. The team is working on a platform product which can be used as a basis to produce unmanned aerial vehicles of very different modifications to solve a range of tasks. Over time, the company will be able take up solid positions in a number of markets, from agriculture, to logistics and precipitation stimulation," commented Alexander Povalko, General Director of RVC.
Currently, SKYF platform has no competitors among unmanned aerial vehicles which would be comparable in price and performance. At present, the carrying capacity of the platform is up to 250 kg, flight range is up to 350 km (with the carrying capacity of 50 kg), flight duration is up to 8 hours (with the carrying capacity of 50 kg). Thanks to separation of lift and control rotors, it can directly use energy of the internal combustion engine without an expensive serial hybrid electric layout, which significantly reduces the vehicle cost and makes it possible to introduce the technology of high-capacity UAVs on a large scale. According to the developers, delivery of cargos by heavy drones is becoming a promising service in demand in various areas – in agriculture and logistics, for fighting fires, instrumental control, pipeline flaw detection and dozens of other applications.
GenerationS-2017 selects start-ups in the field of agriculture and medicine (Agro&MedTech); new media, fashion, design and entertainment (Creative); power engineering (Power & Energy); banking and financial services (FinTech); metals processing, mining machinery and raw material quality management (Mining & Metals); smart production and systems implementation (TechNet); dual-purpose projects (Dual Technologies).
Projects are selected for the benefit of partner companies which act as potential customers of products and organizers of acceleration programs. PJSC “Vympelcom”, PJSC “ODK-Saturn”, EFKO Group, Faberlic, “STS Media”, NMGK Group, RT “Business Development”, JSC "Voentelecom", JSC "Roselectronica" have already become partners of GenerationS-2017.
The Superfinal of GenerationS will be held in April 2018. The winners will share the prize fund of 15 million rubles, be awarded prizes from partners, and will also use an opportunity to continue working with industrial partners and raise investments for the development and finalization of their products.
You can find detailed information about the schedule of the nearest events by regional partners on the GenerationS website. To become a member of GenerationS-2017, please register via the following link.
