Verity Studios Raises $18M; Has Flown Drones At Metallica, MSG

Verity Studios – Verity Studios
Metallica’s James Hetfield performing with Verity Studios drones, 2017.

Verity Studios AG announced June 5 that it had raised $18 million in Series A funding to expand its live events business in the U.S. and in other areas.

Investors in the Zurich-based company included the venture capital firm Fontinalis Partners, as well as Airbus Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Kitty Hawk. One of the terms of the financing is that Chris Cheever, co-founder and partner at Fontinalis, will join Verity’s board of directors.

“Verity has assembled an exceptional team, with credibility, valuable IP, and extensive technical know-how, all while building a fast-growing business in the live events market,” Cheever said in a statement. “Our firm was founded to invest in and help scale the world’s best mobility technologies, and what Verity has developed has broad applicability beyond entertainment, in the drone industry and in many commercial contexts.”

Verity bills itself as the “global leader in indoor drone technology,” and as the first to deploy autonomous drones in a live setting. The company has flown machines over 30,000 performances in more than 20 countries since its creation in 2014. The company’s drones have flown in venues like Madison Square Garden Arena and have been a part of shows by Metallica and Cirque du Soleil.

Markus Waibel, CEO and co-founder of Verity Studios, spoke to Pollstar in December and emphasized the importance of safety: “An important consideration often overlooked both indoors and outdoors is that safety considerations need to go well beyond the drones themselves. For example, many drone crashes happen because drones lose radio communication. This will seem obvious to many readers, but a properly architected system should not rely on radio communication as a critical link.”