Motorola Solutions Invests in Edgybees for AR in Disaster Response

Together with Verizon Ventures, 8VC, Aspect Ventures, OurCrowd and NFX, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital recently invested in Edgybees, a company that creates augmented reality (AR) technology that may utilized on drones and other vehicles designed to help First Responders in an emergency. 

By providing a real world view of a situation and adding additional information and perspective, Edgybees can help emergency workds more effectively respond. Examples given include post hurricane flooding in the US or the recent California wild fires that devestated many communities. Edgybees is currenty in use but this new funding will help fuel the expansion of its AR tech into other verticals such as defense, smart cities, automotive, and broadcast media.

Edgybees patent pending technology was was first applied to an AR racing game for drones, released in conjunction with drone leader DJI in early 2017. But the company saw additional opportunities to leverage their service and later that year, Edgybees released “First Response,” a drone-flying app being used by emergency responders to orient themselves in confusing environments and to better track rapidly evolving circumstances.

The drone flying app was first used by officials operating in the Florida Keys in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, where their mapping overlays helped to identify distress calls in flooded areas.

“What started as technology powering a racing game is now saving lives around the world,” commented Edgybees co-founder and CEO Adam Kaplan. “The overwhelming response by commercial and industrial drone users looking to leverage AR, and partner with us in the fields of fire, public safety, and search & rescue has been amazing, and we can’t wait to expand the next set of drone applications into new markets.”

OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved added that his company was particularly happy to invest in this groundbreaking AR tech.

“What makes Edgybees so special is that they have already demonstrated that their drone software can save lives in addition to making software history by enabling Augmented Reality at high speed.”
Verizon Ventures’ Merav Rotem-Naaman said that Edgybees aims to bring AR to much more challenging circumstances than currently possible – on fast-moving outdoor devices like drones and cars thus complimenting its existing businesses.

“We see powerful potential for Edgybees’ AR software to help us deliver rich, real-time intelligence to public safety and commercial users during the moments that matter,” added Motorola Solutions CTO Paul Steinberg.

Edgybees is headquartered in Israel and has offices in Europe and the United States