Adam Bry

𝐀𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐭 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐄𝐫𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝

It is an honor and a joy to work with the critical industries our civilization runs on to build a new era of Flying Robot Infrastructure that helps keep us all safer and makes our world more efficient. Together with our customers we have made immense progress towards this future over the last year. You can see it in the metrics - 2M flights/year and exponentially growing - and you can see it in the thousands of individual stories where a drone helped save a life, protect an asset, or just save someone from tedious manual work.

But we’re still just getting started. On stage at Skydio Ascend, we announced two new categories of products that will shape the next decade:

• The software Commands: DFR Command, Asset Command, and Security Command. We’re now tapping the true potential of software-defined, autonomous, dock-based drones with industry-specific applications for Public Safety, Energy Infrastructure, and Physical Site Security. Each Command brings together specialized autonomy, customized interfaces and workflows, and deep integrations with complementary software and systems to orchestrate fleets of flying robots and deliver end-to-end solutions for each industry. This makes drones easier to adopt and integrate than ever before, and orders of magnitude more effective once you’re operating them.

• F10 Lightrunner: This is the most advanced fixed-wing drone that has ever existed. It’s launched and caught with a robotic arm (RTOL); its gimbal is on the wingtip which means it never gets obstructed by the wing (SideEye); and it has the evolution of @SkydioHQ Autonomy for fixed-wing aircraft (Foresight). All of these together represent one of the great feats of engineering in the history of aircraft, but we didn’t do it just for fun. F10 will bring the benefits of Drone as First Responder and fully automated drone inspection of critical infrastructure to all the landmass in the free world with 100mph speed and up to 30-mile coverage radius.

We build the coolest technology in the world, with the best team in the world, to serve the most important customers in the world. LFG.

Great comment or best comment ever?

Another day, another new product shipping from @SkydioHQ. Controller 2 ships to customers today. Docks are a huge part of the drone future, but controllers aren’t going anywhere. Bigger, brighter screen, better 5g performance, all the I/O our customers asked for, and brings the Software Commands to the edge for seamless and integrated dock + controller-flown operations… just might be the best GCS in the game.

Skydio is announcing a $1.2B investment from Axon today.

Axon is a special company: pioneering products, an optimistic vision of the future, an inclusive and thoughtful approach to building towards that future, and a truly special team. They have been an inspiration for me and Skydio on many fronts, and they have been an incredible partner in bringing the benefits of DFR to public safety.

Axon is the only company I’ve encountered that I could see acquiring Skydio and having it actually work. Both companies seriously considered doing it. But we came to believe we can both be most useful to the world as independent companies.

With this investment, we’re doubling down on a phenomenally successful product and GTM partnership. The vast majority of our state and local public safety business was already going through Axon and they will now become our exclusive reseller for US and Canada public safety. Similarly, Skydio becomes the exclusive drone Axon will sell in those markets. And the investment gives Axon a large and well deserved stake in the enormous upside of Skydio.

Skydio didn’t need the money, so this is mostly going to provide liquidity for existing shareholders and employees - which I am equally excited about.

What does this mean for our customers?
It means Skydio remains a fully independent company (Axon is a minority shareholder and is buying non-voting stock) with the resources and mandate to continue making massive investments to build the flying robot infrastructure our civilization needs across all of the industries we serve from energy, construction, the military, transportation, and of course public safety.
In public safety, this strengthens a partnership that has enabled us to reach and better serve thousands of agencies, and it opens up even more product-level collaboration. But we also remain committed to integrating and collaborating with any/every company we need to to deliver results for our public safety customers, including companies that Skydio and Axon may have competitive overlap with.

We are charting a course to build one of the great physical AI companies of this century with civilization-scale impact.

I love getting to be the CEO of Skydio and I also love endurance sports, which means I also also love using endurance sports as a mindset and analogy for what it takes to be successful over long time horizons in our industry. Sometimes you just need to outlast and outsuffer everyone.

I turned 40 earlier this year, and I was keen to see (perhaps prove) I could run a 5 minute mile. When I was 20 years old my PR was 6 minutes, when I was 30 it was 5:30, and at 40 I’m faster than I was 1 or 2 decades ago at 4:59.88. A first order linear fit suggests I should be good for a 4:30 mile when I turn 50 :)

And @SkydioHQ is also getting faster and faster as we get older, as evidenced by the accelerating torrent of hardware and software we’re launching these days.

Video proof of the mile attached (courtesy of an X10 with subject tracking) with my wonderful kids racing me down the home straight and then bringing me a water bottle which I was in too much pain to be aware of.