The deal has been a long time in the making.

Rocos co-founder David Inggs said he first met US drone software company DroneDeploy a few years ago through Australian venture capital fund Airtree, who had invested in both the New Zealand robotics software company and the US drone software company.

Both were also early-stage partners with robotics company Boston Dynamics, which was trying to work out how it could make money from its quadruped robot, known as Spot.

The NZ company has pioneered cloud technology software that allows robots to be operated remotely and sometimes autonomously. 

Its software has most famously been used with Spot, which has herded sheep, traversed difficult terrain in vineyards and captured data in situations where sending in humans could be dangerous.
The leaders of each company caught up in San Francisco, and “got on like a house on fire”, Inggs said.
Since then they’ve stayed in touch until a few months ago when the Rocos team got a call from DroneDeploy and was asked: “Have you thought about being acquired?”

Inggs won’t confirm how much he and chief technology officer Richard Stinear sold the NZ firm for, but DroneDeploy has stated it's “eight figures,” so it's anything from “$10 million to $100m”.

So the 20-strong Rocos team, which is now the DroneDeploy ground team, has been wearing DroneDeploy t-shirts secretly for months, Inggs said.

Inggs said the deal makes sense. Its software is focused on the ground, scanning environments and feeding back data, while DroneDeploy has become the market leader in drone software.

Unique tech meets market leader

Spot with Rocos' software on board. (Image: BusinessDesk)


“DroneDeploy really presented this absolute unique opportunity in the fact that they're already the market leader in aerial robotic, automatic automation of data capture and their customers were begging them to support ground-based capture as well. 
"For us, it was this inevitable outcome of the market leader and all of those customers. 
"We've got the unique tech and also DroneDeploy, having been through the phase of having built some of this technology for drones, had a deep appreciation for the technologies that we had built. And they knew how hard it was going to be, they knew what we had, they knew there was incredible opportunity together.”

Now the company can accelerate its growth and is deep into the business of ramping up commercialising its software.

The sale also means expansion. 

Inggs said DroneDeploy rated its NZ talent and team and had no plans to shift its operations to the US. 

The NZ team will grow, Inggs said, and while it won’t be hundreds of staff he said it had room for about 40-to-50 staff in its current office and would hire other workers outside of the ground team in NZ.

As well as the link-up with Boston Dynamics, Rocos had been working with a Canadian company called Clearpath which builds rover technology. The new DroneDeploy software built by Rocos can be used with the rovers and there are plans to use the software to distribute fertiliser from trailers hitched onto the rovers.

Now with the DroneDeploy deal, you could have a drone in the sky capturing data about how the plants look and that data could be fed back to an agronomist who decides to drop the fertiliser. Then, a rover equipped with the what-was-Rocos’ software can go out and deliver it, all the while also feeding back data.

“So you get to this point where the concept of full autonomy takes place.”

Local backers

The company was backed by Icehouse Ventures, Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 and the government-backed Aspire NZ Seed Fund. 

“Companies are undergoing a digital transformation accelerated by challenges surrounding labour shortages and covid-driven remote operations. As a result, the market demand for automatic site documentation and digital twins has soared,” said DroneDelpoy chief executive and co-founder Mike Winn. 

“With the Rocos acquisition, we are enabling our customers to automate ground-level data capture, moving several steps closer to a complete automation solution.”

DroneDeploy had already begun integrating Rocos’ robotic control with its indoor data processing technology to deliver autonomous 360 virtual walkthrough and inspection at scale, the company said in a statement.

The company would launch its new offerings at its annual DroneDeploy conference this October.

The sale is yet another in the NZ tech industry in 2021.

In May, Dunedin-based appointment booking software company Timely was bought by US firm EverCommerce for an undisclosed amount while Seequent was sold to Bentley Systems for $1.45 billion.

Kumeu’s Ninja Kiwi was also bought this year for $271m by Swedish firm MTG and point-of-sale company Vend was also acquired in 2021 by Lightspeed for $480m.

The terms of the Rocos sale were not disclosed.