Draganfly Inc. (NASDAQ: DPRO) announced it has signed a $9 million manufacturing agreement with Pittsburgh-based Digital Dream Labs Inc. (DDL) to design and develop a new consumer robot drone named "Emilia," an homage to aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.
The new drone will be the latest addition to DDL's growing lineup of consumer products that encourage children to code with toys that have their own personalities, part of DDL's larger mission that Co-founder and CEO Jacob Hanchar described as trying to be "the Dora the Explorer for coding."
DDL is still in the development stage of figuring out the final specifics for the product, but it will be similar to the other programmable robotics toys it offers. The products themselves task users with learning how to program the products so the robots can do certain capabilities or accomplish tasks. Hanchar said the drone will likely retail for around $300 and will join robotic friends Cozmo and Vector for purchase — two products that Hanchar said have been hard to keep in stock.
"That's one of the reasons why we took on Draganfly as a partner is because we really need to catch up with demand," Hanchar said. "Supply is our issue — between all the parts and the logistical problems we've had this year as a result of the fallout from Covid, this allows us an opportunity to catch up and add more family members to the Cozmo family and then really get more cartoons on the screen and increase the number of characters in our universe."
Hanchar said that $9 million order is just a minimum for Draganfly, a Los Angeles-based maker of drone solutions and systems developer.
"I think we're going to blow past that, no problem," Hanchar said. "This really helps us with our forward-looking revenue for 2022. This puts it in the pipeline, I'm planning on hitting eight figures at the very least next year. Our plan is to do $30 million in revenue next year; this is a significant chunk of that."
Draganfly will produce 50,000 drone products annually for DDL, per the terms of the agreement, with an expected delivery of the product to take place sometime in 2022. Draganfly also has been granted a right of first refusal to become the exclusive manufacturer and assembler of subsequent drone or UAV-based robots from DDL should they be added to the Pittsburgh company's portfolio.
“The Draganfly team is incredibly excited to be working with Digital Dream Labs and helping them in taking hands-on educational technology to new heights with this new robot," Cameron Chell, CEO of Draganfly, said in a statement. "Our team of robotics, AI and aviation experts are looking forward to helping DDL cement their market leading position by developing the ultimate drone companion."
DDL was founded in 2012 and currently has about 35 full-time employees.
