In 2014, the brothers Svilen and Konstantin Rangelov founded Dronamics Global Ltd., aiming to enhance the global trade sector by creating long-range cargo drones. Ever since then, they have been working on their flagship Black Swan drone which has undergone a test program for examining its flights in various conditions, and, in May 2023, successfully completed its first flight in Balchik. Having most recently attracted an investment of 10 million euro from the European Innovation Council (EIC), the company has until the end of 2024 to close its Series A funding round.
The technology
Although it took 9 years for Dronamics to make its initial idea to transport goods in a fast, cost-efficient, and sustainable way to come to fruition, the company's development accelerated markedly after the flight of the Black Swan. The production of a second, more advanced drone took less than a year, and a third drone is currently underway.
The Black Swan is designed specifically to carry 350 kilograms of cargo for industries like e-commerce, perishables, pharmaceuticals, and spare parts, and covers 2,500 kilometers in a single flight at up to half the price of any other existing aircraft that allows for same-day delivery.
"The cargo can be up to 350 kg, but we sell the full flight to the customer. So, no matter whether they load 1 kg or 350 kg, they pay for 350 kg. This is the model which dedicated freight operators always operate on," Rangelov explains.
The company scored a major achievement in 2022, bringing it up to the same level as other international airlines. This was when Dronamics became the first European licensed cargo drone airline, to have both IATA and ICAO designator codes, so officially recognizing it as an airline entity, as stated on the company's website.
Investments
Ever since its creation, the airfreight company has attracted multiple investors, including Bulgarian VC fund Eleven Ventures, SpeedInvest, the UAE's Strategic Development Fund (SDF), and individual investors such as Boyko Yaramov, the Telerik co-founder. In 2021, Dronamix Capital raised 6 million through an initial public offering on the BEAM market organized by the Bulgarian Stock Exchange.
The most recent investment came from the European Innovation Council (EIC), which has a budget of more than 10 billion euro for the years 2021-2027 to support companies and scale innovation. On March 19, Svilen Rangelov signed an agreement for an equity investment of 10 million euro with Iliana Ivanova, the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, at the annual EIC Summit in Brussels.
This will be the second time the EIC has supported the company, with 2.5 million euro granted in November 2022. Back then, Dronamics was one of the two Bulgarian companies selected to receive support alongside 72 other European firms from nearly 1,000 candidates.
This financial injection scales the total amount of capital raised by Dronamics to about 50 million euro. In order to reach its targets, the public company will seek more funds until the end of 2024 to close its Series A funding round, which is expected to amount to at least 50 million euro, as stated by Svilen Rangelov for Capital.
"The follow-up financing and the company's commercial flights are directly linked, so we expect to make our first flights this summer and close a round by the end of the year," he adds.
This summer, Dronamics plans to carry out its first commercial flights in Greece, where the company's customers include Hellenic Posts, Hellmann, and Golden Cargo. "We will start operations in the triangle of Athens, Kavala, and Crete," says Rangelov, adding that in its role as an airline, Dronamics is a partner to logistics companies, not their competitor, and its main advantage is the ability to land at hard-to-reach points and operate without a pilot, which increases its time in the air.
About the EIC
The European Innovation Council (EIC) is a structure of the European Union that aims to fund high-tech companies based on scientific discovery. The EIC begins to fully operate in 2021 - a phase, preceded by a three-year pilot period, which proved that providing public funding for equity participation in high-tech companies leads to more private investments in the sector. By the end of 2023, the EIC had invested more than 1 billion euro in 500 companies and almost as many projects, valuing its portfolio at 70 billion euro.
The other Bulgarian picks of the EIC
So far, there are several local companies in which the EIC has invested in the form of either grants or equity. Among the participants in the fund's accelerator program are LAM'ON, the biodegradable laminating film manufacturer, which won the accelerator in 2022, and Smart Farm Robotics, a participant in the current edition of the program that will receive 2.36 million euro to develop its precision weeding technology.
Daye: The manufacturer of period and gynie health products, founded by Valentina Milanova, attracted a 2.5 million euro grant in January last year, with a commitment for additional funding at a later stage.
Transmetrics: The company, which develops AI software to optimize logistics for large transportation companies, received a 1.7 million euro grant in 2019 and raised 1.2 million euro in 2023 from the EIC.
Iris.ai: In early 2023, the AI platform, which offers a search engine for scientific literature, received a 2.5 million euro grant and a commitment from EIC to invest up to 12 million euro in the company's upcoming Series A investment round, which it expects to close by the end of 2024.
Checkpoint Cardio: The Kazanlak-based manufacturer of a patient monitoring system participated in the accelerator in 2017 and attracted a 2.4 million euro grant from Europe in January 2023, with a commitment to equity participation from the fund at a later stage.
In 2014, the brothers Svilen and Konstantin Rangelov founded Dronamics Global Ltd., aiming to enhance the global trade sector by creating long-range cargo drones. Ever since then, they have been working on their flagship Black Swan drone which has undergone a test program for examining its flights in various conditions, and, in May 2023, successfully completed its first flight in Balchik. Having most recently attracted an investment of 10 million euro from the European Innovation Council (EIC), the company has until the end of 2024 to close its Series A funding round.
