Nearly a decade ago, brothers Aviv and Matteo Shapira co-founded Replay, which created a video format for 360-degree replays – the type of replays that have develop into an integral a part of major sports broadcasts.
Replay caught the attention of Intel, which acquired the company in 2016 for approx reported $175 million and led Aviva and Matteo to a likelihood meeting with Rubi Liani, founding father of the Official Israeli Drone Racing League (FRIL).
Liani got the brothers involved in drone racing and sowed the idea for their next startup, Xtend, that he helped find.
“As founders, we saw an opportunity to bridge the gap between our experiences,” Aviv told TechCrunch. “We saw the unique skills required to control advanced robots, especially drones. Our vision was to develop technology that would make the control of these robots as intuitive and accessible as users could interact with their smartphones without the need for in-depth technical knowledge.”
Xtend provides a platform that permits operators to administer drones and robots developed by each Xtend and third-party vendors. With the Xtend platform, operators can directly control drones and robots – optionally via a VR headset – or train AI models for deployment on drones that discover objects and help navigate indoor and outdoor environments. Today, the company announced a $40 million financing round led by Chartered Group, at a post-money valuation of roughly $110 million.
“Our platform enables drones and robots to independently perform specific tasks, such as entering buildings and scanning floors,” Aviv said. “Most importantly, it allows common sense decisions – such as assessing situations or adapting to unforeseen circumstances – to remain in the hands of human superiors.”
Xtend allows operators to coordinate teams of drones and robots – not only individual machines – and allow them to autonomously perform specific tasks, equivalent to moving from point to point. All the while, Xtend analyzes data from previous deployments to recommend actions the operator can take.
“Xos enables a single supervisor to supervise a team of robots performing tasks in different locations simultaneously,” Aviv said. “We believe that full autonomy is not the ultimate goal, but rather a subset of possibilities.”
Xtend positions its technology as a general-purpose technology aimed at customers in a number of industries, from public safety to logistics. However, the company’s principal focus is on military, defense and law enforcement applications.
Xtend has contracts with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the US Department of Defense to “develop and deliver its systems”, including drone interception systemsfor “operational assessment” – including a $9 million contract with the Pentagon’s Office of Irregular Activities. Aviv is not shy about the company’s ambition to deal with what it calls “new opportunities in the civilian market” equivalent to private and public security.
“Imagine a police officer coordinating drone operations to search a large area for a suspect,” Aviv said. “Xos can enable these professionals to leverage robotic assistance.”
This could also be problematic on condition that these provisions are still largely missing for law enforcement use, and drones have been used to manage legal demonstrations – for example, in 2020, Democrats in Congress raised the alarm that then-President Donald Trump’s administration was using drones and spy planes to surveil demonstrations in Las Vegas, Minneapolis and Washington, in response to Al Jazeera.
Moreover, Xtend has recently found itself in the crosshairs of international monitors.
State Surveillance and Militarization Information Center (IMI) found in the evaluation that Xtend, along with other Israeli firms and military institutions involved in deploying drones, received a research and development grant from the EU’s Horizon Europe fund despite a ban on EU funding for military and defense projects.
Aviv has taken a strongly pro-Israel position in connection with the ongoing war with Hamas in the country, eloquent Ctech that Xtend “has redirected its energy to 100% support of the IDF.” On its website, which features testimonials from Israeli soldiers in Gaza, Xtend claims it enables “soldiers to perform precise maneuvers in complex combat scenarios.”
In interview in The Wall Street Journal, Aviv said that Xtend has been working with the IDF for some time – initially to shoot down incendiary balloons coming from the Gaza Strip. Since then, its drones have been used to map and investigate underground tunnels dug by Hamas in Gaza and, much more worryingly, sent on reconnaissance missions equipped with explosives equivalent to grenades.
While it could seem controversial, the strategy appears to be working for Xtend. The company says it has won $50 million in contracts so far among its customers spanning “more than 50” organizations, including government defense agencies.
“We are unlocking the true potential of robotics in complex scenarios including first response, search and rescue, and critical infrastructure inspection,” Aviv said. “Hundreds of Xtend drone and robotics systems are already operationally deployed around the world, and we proceed to evolve Xos and these platforms to make sure the way forward for human-machine collaboration.
With the new financing, which can bring Xtend’s total funding to $65 million, Xtend plans to grow its 110-person workforce by 50% in the U.S., Israel and Singapore by the end of the yr because it transitions to a combination of platform-as-a-service sales model and software-as-a-service. The plan assumes international expansion, with particular emphasis on Japan.