We Built Our First Prototype, And Found Our Next Problem

August 2025

We’re thrilled to share that we’ve been awarded a 2025 Orange Innovation Fund grant from Syracuse University, one of seven student-founded ventures recognized this cycle. We’re grateful to be included among such a diverse group of founders, from a clothing line for neurodivergent individuals to AI tools across health care and computing, it’s clear Syracuse is backing entrepreneurs across the board.

Right now, we’re still purely a drone company, building hardware. This funding let us go build our first heavy-lift tethered drone prototype, and getting it into the air for the first time was an incredible moment, the kind you don’t forget.

But building it also taught us something we didn’t expect: the drone itself works. The command and control around it,  the software layer actually coordinating what it does, is seriously lacking. We’re already thinking hard about what it would take to fix that gap, and we suspect that’s where a lot of our attention is headed next.

Thank you to Syracuse University Libraries for the early belief and the funding to go find that out.