Sharper Shape, the world leading supplier of drone (UAV) based automated asset management services announced 1M eur (ca. $ 1.2M) investment by a leading venture debt fund Vision+.
The bridge funding helps Sharper Shape to accelerate its growth through new hires and to finance new customer opportunities. The company plans to complete a series A equity funding in H1/2015.
“Sharper Shape’s robotic drones with advanced sensor systems and automated data analysis will revolutionize the
way the infrastructure assets are maintained and planned. When the inflexible and costly helicopter flights and time consuming field inspections are replaced with fully automated drones and analysis, the infrastructure asset operators can gain order of magnitude improvements in their efficiency”, said Tero Ojanperä, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Vision+ Fund.
“Sharper Shape has been growing without external funding to lead the UAV based asset management services market. Vision+ fund model is ideal for high revenue growth companies, as it allows the company to accelerate while protecting the ownership of the founders. Our revenue in FY 2014 will show solid growth of ca. 500% over the previous year, and we expect the excellent growth to continue in FY 2015”, said Tero Heinonen, the founder of Sharper Shape.
“Vision+ invests in products with an equity loan on a revenue-share basis, which offers entrepreneurs access to investment without diluting their existing equity value”, said Tero Ojanperä, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Vision+ Fund.
About Sharper Shape
Sharper Shape (www.sharpershape.com) is the world-leading supplier of UAV based asset management solutions for utilities. Sharper Shape provides fully automated inspection and maintenance planning services for infrastructure asset owners. Our Next Eagle® solution is the world’s first automatic asset inspection solution utilizing UAVs, which drastically reduces inspection and maintenance costs for high value assets such as power lines, pipelines, railways and more. We provide actionable plans for both the financial decision-makers to help with budgeting and resource allocation, and for engineering in planning and placing work orders for asset maintenance and vegetation management.
About Vision+
Vision+ Fund is USD 70 million venture capital fund. It provides capital with a unique investment model: Equity Loan with revenue share and a conversion option. Equity loan investment doesn’t dilute existing shareholders ownership but still improves equity of the company. Equity Loan doesn’t requires guarantees and after a certain return for the Fund the Company has right to convert the Capital Loan into equity and terminate the revenue share. As a result conversion with higher future valuation enables next investment rounds and an exit with less dilution.
Ekaterina Sukhova
Sharper Shape
Email: ekaterina.sukhova@sharpershape.com
Original article and pictures take www.suasnews.com site
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