Skye Air taps agritech startup Vegrow to deliver apples via drones in Himachal Pradesh

Drone delivery service provider Skye Air Mobility said that it is conducting a trial for delivering apples in Himachal Pradesh, in partnership with agritech startup Vegrow. During the three-day trial, which started on November 11 in Kinnaur district, Skye Air transported over 100 kilograms of apples from farms to Vegrow's storage facility. 

Skye Air said that it used a drone for trial, which can carry payloads of up to 5kg at a time and can undertake 4 to 8 flights every day.  

Vegrow aggregates farm produce and then sells them to get farmers the maximum value for their farm produce. After the trial, Vegrow is expected to develop a business case for delivering farm produce using drones on a much larger scale.

“This association is significant as it highlights the role of drone technology in transporting agri-commodity in the tough terrains like Himachal Pradesh. At present, it takes more than 2-3 hours for the farmers today to deliver the produce to warehouse. With Skye Air drones, this is being shortened to minutes,” Ankit Kumar, chief executive officer of Skye Air, said in a statement. 

Skye Air has emerged as one of the most active drone delivery service providers in India. It claims to have delivered over 7,20,000 packages across India in the last few months. It is also working with diagnostics firm Redcliffe Labs to carry test samples of patients living in remote corners of Uttarakhand to its test lab in Dehradun.  

The samples will be collected manually from houses and then brought to a landing centre in Uttarkashi where they will be loaded on the drone. According to Redcliffe Labs, the drones can transport samples in 88 minutes, which if delivered by road would take 6 to 8 hours due to the hilly terrain of Uttarakhand. 

In July, Skye Air also signed a deal with HP State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd to offer drone delivery as a service across the state. 

Founded in 2020, Skye Air is working with multiple companies such as Flipkart, Swiggy, Dunzo, and Bluedart that want to use drones for delivering goods. Last week, the startup raised $1.7 million in seed funding led by Chiratae Ventures.