Drone Racing League (founded in 2015) organizes and broadcasts competitive drone races and is the most established player in amateur and professional drone racing. The league secured a $20M Series B to support its growth ahead of its 2017 season. Last season over 75 million fans tuned in via online and TV broadcasts through partners like ESPN, and DRL now airs in over 75 countries (up from 40). Broadcast partners include ESPN, SKY Sports and DisneyXD, and races are filmed live-to-tape to enable strategic scheduling across time zones. CEO Nicholas Horbaczewski said the round was driven by a desire to work strategically with investors, suggesting future collaborations around sports entertainment and broadcasting. DRL is prepared to shift to live broadcasts when the sport gains sufficient momentum. DRL organizes and broadcasts elite FPV drone races using custom-designed, hand-built identical drones and proprietary broadcast and race infrastructure to capture high-speed, close-proximity racing. The company positions itself as a sports-and-media franchise, combining world-class pilot skill and technology to create mass-appeal racing content. DRL secured a strategic investment and distribution partnership with Sky to bring live events and broadcast content to the UK and Ireland via Sky Sports Mix. The 2016 season was packaged as ten one-hour episodes covering five races and a winner-take-all World Championship, with broadcasts beginning in October 2016. DRL has also signed multi-year international event and distribution partnerships with ESPN and 7Sports and a global media production partnership with MGM Studios to develop unscripted shows and additional scripted and new-format content. DRL and Sky are partnering with London & Partners to stage the first professional drone race in the UK at an iconic London venue. The company was founded in 2015, is headquartered in New York City, and is a privately held entity; notes to editors state gross assets subject to the transaction were $1M and profits attributable to those assets were nil.

Total raised

$21M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Jun 2017