Participated · Series B · Mar 2022

Terra Drone Corporation is a Tokyo, Japan–based drone and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) technology provider and industrial drone solutions firm led by CEO Hiroki Shiotsuka. The company provides drone and UAM solutions in 10 countries. It raised $14M in funding in a round led by Wa'ed Ventures, the venture capital arm of Aramco. Terra Drone intends to use the funds to set up a new subsidiary, Terra Drone Arabia, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in line with the Saudi government’s Vision 2030. With the establishment of Terra Drone Arabia the company will provide oil-and-gas inspection services and further its global expansion. Terra Drone, founded in 2016 in Japan, develops drone software, hardware and uncrewed aircraft system traffic management (UTM) solutions, alongside inspection services and survey-grade hardware such as Terra LiDAR and Terra LiDAR Cloud. The company provides specialized ultrasonic thickness (UT) and non-destructive testing (NDT) services through its subsidiary Terra Inspectioneering. It serves roughly 500 customers, including major oil & gas firms (Shell, Chevron, BP, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Vopak, Inpex), chemical companies like BASF, utilities such as Kansai Electric Power, and commercial clients like Bunge. Terra Drone has about 60 employees at the parent level and its subsidiaries employ roughly 500 people globally. The firm has pursued M&A and investments—acquiring Netherlands-based Terra Inspectioneering in 2018 and investing in Belgium’s Unifly in 2016—and works with Japanese partners including TEPCO, Japan Airlines, KDDI and JAXA. Terra Drone plans to expand into Europe, the U.S. and Southeast Asia, scale recurring revenue through hardware and software sales, strengthen UAM services, and advance autonomous beyond-visual-line-of-sight technology.