What a year it has been for our small team. In September of 2021 we decided to take the leap to solve what we and many others recognize as critical problems in the US drone industry. We spoke to users from across the Military and Public Safety communities and brought them variation after variation of our early prototypes for feedback. Working side by side with the user is the only way we know how to build things. And just as it has before, that approach paid off. Not just in the performance of our product, but also in research and development contract awards with the Department of Defense.
Looking ahead, we're so very excited for you all to see what we have been building. The YELLOWJACKET is just the first of several platforms Darkhive will deliver in order to bring affordable autonomous drones to the US and our allies around the world. There is a lot more to say about why cost and autonomy matter, but we'll save that for another post :). Here is a quick recap of 2022:
FUNDRAISING: We've officially closed our $1M Pre-seed round with investments from several amazing Angel investors as well as The University of Texas at Dallas Seed Fund, Alamo Angels, TiE Dallas Angels, Lubbock Angels, Mockingbird Ventures, and Stellar Ventures.
We unapologetically develop hardware and software uncrewed aerial system solutions for the public safety and defense communities. For those in the start-up ecosystem, you understand why saying "hardware" and "defense" often counts as two strikes against a company for many VCs. That's why this team of investors is so special. We're excited to welcome new teammates when we open the next round, and we already have the traction to make for an attractive deal, but the team that joined our Pre-seed came in when all we had was an idea. So thank you all.
CONTRACT AWARDS: We won a total of 3 Small Business Innovation Research grants, 1 Small Business Technology Transfer grant partnered with the University of Alaska, and 1 Research and Development contract with National Security Innovation Capital at the Defense Innovation Unit. We received 25 letters of support for these efforts from across the military community, including the US Air Force, Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Space Force. We're grateful for every opportunity we have received to support you all. 2023 is going be a very big year for Darkhive. We'll be growing quite a bit to support all the contract and product development work we have ahead, but we'll always remember how special this first year was as a small team of 3. Looking forward to sharing more updates soon and wishing everyone a very Happy New Year. See you out there.