Every so often, a business or project seeking money on Kickstarter finds it has suddenly captured investors’ imagination. The latest such success story is Torquing Group, a British technology firm that has just raised more than £2.3m to help it develop the Zano, a tiny drone that users can control with their smartphones.
It’s quite a total. Torquing set an initial target for the offer (which closed today) of £125,000, but the company, based in the South-West corner of Wales, was rapidly overwhelmed by investors’ interest. In return for investors’ money, Torquing is offering free first editions of the Zano, which it hopes to have on the market by June, priced at around £170.
Reece Crowther, Torquing’s marketing director, believes the popularity of the pitch lies in the appeal of the product to the mass market. It claims the Zano is the ‘world’s most sophisticated nano drone’ – the device is small enough to sit in the palm of your hand and the marketing tag line is 'taking your selfies to new heights'.
"When we began work on Zano, our goal was to make aerial photography and video capture truly accessible to everyone,” Crowther explains. “This meant making Zano small and lightweight, yet durable enough to take with you anywhere, intelligent enough so no piloting skills were required, and most of all, pricing Zano at a point that makes it affordable.”
The drone will be able to take still photos and shoot video footage while in flight, with Torquing promising a battery life of up to 15 minutes of flight time and a top speed of 25mph. The device has a removable battery, so that pilots can swap in a new power source rather than waiting for it to recharge before getting it back in the air.
It promises to be easy to fly – you’ll be able to use your smartphone as a joystick, tilting it forward, backwards, left or right to produce the same movements from the drone, or opting for an on-screen joystick control instead.
All in all, the technology looks as if it has a good shot at cracking a mainstream audience, which would represent a breakthrough for drone technology.
And this may just be the start. Having smashed its funding targets, Torquing now has to make good on some of the promises it made about product development. For example, it said that £250,000 would enable it to add a 360-degree panoramic shooting facility, while £2m would give it the funds to develop a swarm function, with people able to control many drones from a single device.
Those enhancements may now be available on later versions of the Zano. Torquing itself is a well-established technology company with a track record of innovation in the drone space, so there’s no reason to doubt its ability to deliver.
In the meantime, more than 12,000 Kickstarter investors are looking forward to receiving their drones later this year. Keep an eye on the skies.
