On the night of Dec. 10, an EF4 tornado ripped through Western Kentucky, causing catastrophic damage to the small towns Mayfield and Dawson Springs and severe damage in other areas.
The aftermath was unthinkable. Hundreds of homes were destroyed. Scores of businesses were ravaged. Eighty lives were lost — and countless families were left heartbroken.
But in the midst of that destruction, a Louisville drone company saw an opportunity to better aid recovery efforts in the future.
Anytime there's a major storm or outage in Kentucky, LG&E and KU calls in VizionAir to assess the damage. The company, founded by Drew Duffin, CEO and Ian Willmot, operations officer, uses its equipment and network of drone pilots to help the commonwealth's utilities providers better administer repair and remediation.
"We were in Western Kentucky for about seven days working sunup to sundown, collecting information in terms of where the downed [power] lines were, what assets and utilities were still online, which houses and businesses were completely demolished and ones that weren't, so they could prioritize where they're going to allocate their resources to get everyone back online," Duffin said. "With that experience, we uncovered an opportunity in terms of developing a drone data management software system."
As an aerial services company, VizionAir had worked with several Fortune 500 companies and found a niche in the industrial space, offering visual inspections, ground surveys, maps and 3D models. With 6,000 miles of network that needs to be inspected every two years, LG&E and KU has since become one of the company's largest clients.
"Anyone can fly a drone, anyone can take photos and capture data, but we've seen a lot of shortcomings when it comes to properly harnessing that data and getting as much value out of it as possible," Duffin said.
That's why VizionAir is putting together a team to develop a proprietary software for enterprises, with a focus on electrical and gas utilities. It will open a seed fundraising round in the coming months, seeking $1.25 million to fund the system's development and team growth, including software developers and sales and marketing talent.
About the company
Duffin was working in medical device sales when his wife gifted him a drone for his birthday. He took it on vacation in 2016, and the resort they were staying at asked to buy the photos, sparking the idea to start a business.
Saving up six months of runway, Duffin invested in training and commercial licenses and found traction in the marketing space.
A shared connection at a virtual reality/augmented reality conference brought Duffin and Willmot together in 2017. At the time, Willmot worked for Apple, where he would later conduct GPS/GNSS field testing and stress testing equipment in high-density areas of California, including 911 emergency testing and biking/hiking navigation testing.
"After meeting Drew, it was pretty clear that I wanted to do the same thing — I wanted to get into drones," Willmot said. "When I saw the opportunity to use drones as a way to inspect things or to scan a property, and not just take photos, I recognized there could be a nice outlet for me there."
In addition to Duffin and Willmot, who are both pilots VizionAir has a nationwide network of pilots it can contract with for certain projects and applications, including 50 in Kentucky.
