Delair-Tech Acquires Trimble’s Gatewing UAS Business

The move reinforces Delair-Tech’s position as a global leader in the commercial UAS market

The day before the INTERGEO’s exhibition (Hamburg – Germany), Delair-Tech, a leader in professional drones, announced the purchase of Gatewing, Trimble’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) business based in Belgium. The company has also signed a strategic alliance agreement to partner with Trimble as its preferred provider of UAS solutions.

Delair-Tech is continuing to consolidate its position in the commercial UAS market by acquiring the UAS business of Trimble.

In a rare move, Toulouse-based Delair-Tech is confirming its intention to become a leading global player in the commercial drone sector, beginning with a business acquisition. “Currently, the drone market is undergoing intense consolidation, and now is the time to strategically position ourselves as leaders of tomorrow,” says Michael de Lagarde, Delair-Tech’s CEO. “The agreement we have reached with Trimble will enable us to reach the critical size required to better respond to the needs of large industrial groups, which are our main target.”

Trimble’s UAS solutions business, Gatewing, is well known in the professional market. This acquisition enables the companies to merge their teams and create synergy between their technologies and know-how, thus significantly increasing capacity for innovation. Delair-Tech’s new acquisition will strengthen the teams that design and produce the company’s industrial mini-drones with the inclusion of the technical staff based in Ghent (Belgium). The company will also increase its total workforce to 100 employees, marking its place as one of the main players in the global professional drone market.

Alongside the acquisition, Delair-Tech and microdrones have signed strategic commercial agreements with Trimble.
Delair-Tech is teaming up with microdrones, a long-established supplier of multirotor systems, to offer a comprehensive range of products. They will jointly become official suppliers for Trimble’s worldwide distribution network, which sells UAS and image-processing systems to the construction, agriculture, transport, geomatics and energy sectors.

“Trimble chose to partner with Delair-Tech and microdrones to strengthen our UAS portfolio,” says Ron Bisio, Vice-President of Trimble’s Geospatial Division. “Working together, Delair-Tech and microdrones will deliver industry-leading unmanned aircraft systems, while Trimble will focus on core software technology for UAS that integrates positioning, remote sensing and photogrammetry. The ultimate goal is to deliver a complete solution to transform work processes and boost efficiency for our customers.”

“We are proud that Trimble has selected us to be their provider of fixed-wing drone systems,” says Michael de Lagarde, CEO of Delair-Tech. “We will continue to provide dedicated end-to-end solutions, from hardware to fully processed aerial data, which can then be turned into actionable business intelligence. Our strategy is to carve out a larger share of the professional drone market and offer inspection and surveillance services to major industrial groups, based on very-high-resolution image acquisition combined with image processing software specific to each industry (energy, transport, agriculture, construction and security).”

About Trimble
Trimble is transforming the way the world works by delivering products and services that connect the physical and digital worlds. Core technologies in positioning, modeling, connectivity and data analytics enable customers to improve productivity, quality, safety and sustainability. From purpose built products to enterprise lifecycle solutions, Trimble software, hardware and services are transforming a broad range of industries such as agriculture, construction, geospatial and transportation and logistics.

For more information about Trimble, visit www.trimble.com.

About microdrones
microdrones was founded in Germany in 2005, with the launch of groundbreaking unmanned aerial vehicles. As the pioneer of the professional quadcopter Industry, microdrones has developed solutions based on reliable VTOL drones, with a heritage of German engineering and quality.

By integrating the most capable and dependable platform with the right payloads and dedicated processing, microdrones has implemented professional solutions in Europe, Asia, and North America. A global leader in commercial UAVs, microdrones offers local sales, training, and services centers across three continents, to serve customers around the world.

To learn more about microdrones, visit www.microdrones.com.

About Delair-Tech
Delair-Tech, a leader in professional UAVs, provides aerial-imagery-based data to help industries make informed decisions. Experts in both long-range UAV manufacturing and data processing, Delair-Tech delivers end-to-end solutions, from data acquisition to business analysis. Created in 2011, Delair-Tech is represented in more than 80 countries and has over 100 global employees with specialized solutions in various sectors, including: agriculture, geomatics, transport, electric power, oil and gas, mining, and security.

For more information, visit www.delair-tech.com/en/home/.