Houston, Texas agricultural drone company ready to take off

On a gray, damp afternoon, several hundred beautiful black cattle went about their business at the Wodagyu Ranch in Richmond, seemingly unconcerned by the beeping and buzzing overhead.

“They’re definitely used to it,” said Arthur Erickson, co-founder and CEO of the agricultural drone company Hylio, which he and several friends started in a dorm at the University of Texas at Austin about 10 years ago. .

Co-founder Mike Oda grew up on the ranch in Fort Bend County, Erickson said, meaning the company’s co-founders have always had a suitable place to tinker, imagine, build and test their drones, which are used to apply herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers. and other chemicals on farms and ranches. Today, the company has around 75 people and is active in the rapidly growing agricultural drone market.

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Erickson explained that when he started college in 2012, aerospace engineering students like himself were excited about drones and space, two sectors that were experiencing rapid innovation and growth.

He was drawn to drones, seeing their potential practical uses, and soon discovered that several of his friends, also from the Houston area, had complementary skills. Oda, now the company’s chief financial officer, was majoring in finance at the McCombs School of Business; Nikhil Dixit, now CTO, studied computer science; Nick Nawratil, COO, was also an aerospace engineering student.

All were able to invest a few thousand dollars of their personal savings into the company, which officially launched in 2015, and soon began offering drone spraying services for $20 an acre to help fund operations. Hylio sold its first drone at a trade show in Indiana in 2018, Erickson said, to a farmer in his 60s or 70s who had never used a drone before but was convinced of its usefulness after a brief test flight.

The big advantage of using drones to apply chemicals, Erickson continues, is that it costs less than using a tractor or airplane. The equipment is less expensive to own, operate and start, and carries little risk of collateral damage that can reduce a farmer’s yields and, by extension, their profits.

“With tractors, you’re limited to 2D work. You can only go on the ground. So you’re crushing a lot of your crops and compacting your soil,” Erickson said. “Airplanes obviously don’t have a problem with compaction. But they require very high insurance and the vehicles themselves are very expensive. Plus, they drift like crazy and they have no way of repelling this chemical .”

It happens fairly regularly, he said, that chemicals released by planes drift onto adjacent land, perhaps killing a neighbor’s cucumbers, and leading to frustration and even lawsuits.

“The drones are really precise. They push the chemical down. They prevent drift. They avoid soil compaction. They don’t trample any crops,” Erickson said. “They’re cheaper.”

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Hylio currently sells about 40 drones per month, Erickson said, with packages including the drone, its controller and software starting at $20,000 for its most compact model, the AG-210, which has a 2,000-liter tank. 5 gallons and can cover approximately 15 acres. in an hour. The company’s largest model, the AG-272, has an 18-gallon capacity and bills itself as “the largest spraying drone on the market.”

The agricultural drone market is currently valued at $3.6 billion, according to Drone Industry Insights, a trade group. And by all accounts, it’s poised for dramatic growth in the years to come.

Hylio, a private company, is about to capture some of it. In February, the company obtained an exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration, allowing up to three of its drones to be flown in concert by a single operator. It is the first company to benefit from this exemption, which increases the possibility of greater efficiency in spraying large areas.

Additionally, the largest player in the commercial drone space, Chinese company DJI, has faced increased scrutiny from lawmakers who view it as a security threat, prompting many American farmers and ranchers to look for other drone manufacturers.

Erickson, for his part, says Hylio plans to grow fivefold over the next two years, if not sooner.

“It’s still such a new industry,” he said, as the drones rested in the pastures and the cattle continued to graze on the grass.