Manna Closes $5.2 million Seed Funding Round
, the drone food delivery as a service company, has secured $3 million (鈧�2.7 million) in additional funding to support the company鈥檚 commercial growth, bringing to a close a $5.2 million (鈧�4.6 million) seed funding round.
The latest funding was led by US-based Dynamo VC, the world-leading supply chain and logistics-focused fund.
Manna is the world鈥檚 first aviation-grade B2B drone delivery 鈥榓s-a-service鈥� company, with plans to roll-out a fully autonomous drone delivery platform beginning early 2020, launching in Europe and the US.
The airborne logistics platform 鈥榠n-a-box鈥� will provide online meal ordering platforms, restaurant chains and dark kitchens with a 3-minute delivery promise to their local communities for a fraction of the cost of road-based deliveries. Manna uses custom-designed aviation-grade drones built in Europe and the USA.
The Manna drone fleet is operated directly from the restaurant or dark kitchen premises and is accessible via API to food tech providers and online food platforms alike in a channel-agnostic manner; one drone fleet serving all demand to each food provider.
Manna was founded by serial entrepreneur, Bobby Healy and is headquartered at Nova小鸟体育, the Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs at University College Dublin and with an office in Wales.
Bobby Healy, founder and CEO, Manna said, 鈥淲e are on the cusp of the fifth industrial revolution, powered by drones, and our intention with Manna is to make drone delivery as pervasive as running water. We want to literally transform marketplaces, economies, and communities all over the world in a way that not just reduces our carbon footprint but saves lives and creates jobs while doing so.鈥�
Jon Bradford who led the investment for Dynamo Ventures said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to find a rockstar team as ambitious and as capable as the Manna team, and in a domain that is as massive as it is difficult. In Bobby and his incredible team, we see a path to capture a real beachhead in this new emerging market that is truly unprecedented, and we look forward to helping accelerate their vision in the US in 2020.鈥�
ENDS
19 December 2019
For further information contact Mic茅al Whelan, Communications and Media Relations Manager, 小鸟体育 Research and Innovation, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, t: + 353 1 716 3712.