DroneBase USA Acquires AirProbe whose Co-Founder Kaustubh Karnataki is from Belagavi

DroneBase, the leader in intelligent aerial imaging, today announced that it has acquired India-based AirProbe, a leader in drone inspections of solar energy systems and AI-enabled analytics of solar inspection data. The acquisition immediately expands DroneBase’s footprint throughout Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe, making it seamless for the company to support the needs of renewable energy companies globally.

AirProbe Co-Founder, CTO Kaustubh Karnataki is from Belagavi. He completed his schooling at Gomatesh high school, Pre University from Govindram Sekseria Science (GSS) College, Bachelor of Engineering Electronics and Communications Engineering KLS Gogte Institute of Technology Belagavi and masters from Indian Institute of Science & KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

The acquisition brings another advantage to DroneBase and its customers: AirProbe’s proprietary Artificial Intelligence significantly reduces the amount of time needed to analyze aerial inspection data of solar energy systems by up to 50%. This enables solar owners, operators and financiers to more quickly take action to fix high-value anomalies and defects to increase energy generation and improve system ROI.

“As both the number and size of solar energy systems deployed grow exponentially, inspecting and maintaining millions of systems will become more critical and more complex,” said Dan Burton, CEO of DroneBase. “DroneBase solved how to scale solar energy inspections and data capture, and AirProbe solved how to scale solar data analysis with AI; together our solution is truly unbeatable.”

Burton noted on DroneBase’s continued global expansion: “India and the APAC region are growing markets for the renewable energy industry. With AirProbe, we have added the most forward-thinking aerial analytics developer and disciplined operator throughout APAC and EMEA.”

The solar energy market is on a fast track to rapid growth, driven by the demands of corporate net-zero targets and renewable energy commitments made at COP26 by global government leaders. India recently committed to producing more energy through solar and other renewables by 2030 than the nation’s entire grid produces today. Globally, the IEA estimates that annual additions of solar PV and wind will approach 500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.

“Our mission at AirProbe has been to increase the adoption, reliability and efficiency of solar energy systems by developing the best AI-enabled software solution. That aligns perfectly with DroneBase’s mission to continually deliver the best, actionable intelligence so that solar energy system operators and financiers can deliver more clean energy and grow their bottom line at the same time,” said Aditya Bhat, founder of AirProbe.

Bhat will be based in Bangalore, India, and oversee operations in the APAC market.

Terms of the acquisition deal were not disclosed. With the acquisition, DroneBase adds another 22 GW of solar energy systems under inspection, bringing the DroneBase total to more than 59 GW of both wind and solar energy assets under inspection. By the end of 2022, DroneBase expects to reach a processing capacity of 140 GW solar and wind energy annually.

In October 2021, DroneBase announced a $20 million raise, led by Euclidean Capital.