Israeli Drone Startup Flytrex Takes to U.S. Skies
CEO Yariv Bash talks about building a better flying robot, seeking FAA approval and how competition with Amazon helps.
A Flytrex drone.
Source: Flytrex
Three years after launching his drone startup, Flytrex, Yariv Bash made a pivot. What started in 2013 as a supplier for drone manufacturers and hobbyists became a delivery service provider. “We realized that the killer application for drones was going to be backyard delivery,” Bash says. Soon after, the Israel-based company became one of the first commercial drone operators, delivering groceries and other goods in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Since then it’s added small-scale test routes in North Dakota and North Carolina. In September, Walmart Inc. announced it would begin using Flytrex drones to make deliveries as part of a pilot program in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A few months earlier, Flytrex and partner Causey Aviation, a private jet charter company, had filed paperwork with the Federal Aviation Administration to be recognized as an unmanned air carrier. If the approval comes through—Bash expects it sometime in the next couple of months—Flytrex will join Alphabet Inc.’s Wing, United Parcel Service Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Air as the only FAA-sanctioned drone delivery operators in the U.S.