Flytrex, the autonomous drone supply startup, is betting {that a} big-name rent may also help it lastly break via. The corporate has tapped former Waze CEO and Google vice chairman Noam Bardin as govt chairman, a transfer that would give the startup credibility at a second when the trade faces each new alternatives and longstanding challenges.
Bardin, who turned Waze right into a navigation platform with greater than 150 million month-to-month customers earlier than its $1.1 billion sale to Google, is stepping in. Bardin joins Flytrex simply because it secured a key regulatory win: the FAA just lately granted the corporate Past Visible Line of Sight (BVLOS) approval. That’s key in successfully opening the door for its drones to function in 37 of the biggest metro areas within the U.S. — a possible attain of greater than 100 million individuals.
“That is concerning the customers, not the know-how,” Bardin mentioned in an interview with The Drone Lady. “Customers don’t care about know-how, they care concerning the service.”
He mentioned Flytrex will first scale in Dallas-Fort Value, the place it already operates, with the purpose of including dozens of latest websites this yr and overlaying your entire metro space inside 12 months.
Flying excessive alongside Wing and Zipline
Regardless of the recent management and regulatory momentum, Flytrex must show it may well stand robust towards greater, better-funded rivals. Alphabet-owned Wing and longtime competitor Zipline are already working large-scale drone supply operations within the U.S. and overseas, with multi-vertical methods that stretch past meals.
For instance, Zipline is a big participant in medical deliveries, primarily in creating international locations together with Rwanda and Ghana. In 2025, Zipline marked its 100 million mile supply milestone.
Flytrex, in contrast, is narrowing in on a single use case.
“We’re centered solely on meals supply,” Bardin mentioned. “We’re optimized for what it takes to ship meals from eating places to suburban shoppers. We additionally function our personal, vertically-integrated branded service.”
Flytrex made its title approach again in 2017 when it carried out meals deliveries by way of drone in Iceland. A pair years later, it introduced that it might broaden to the U.S., beginning with North Carolina. Since then, it’s grown to different areas together with Texas, which is essentially thought of the main U.S. state for drone supply.
Right this moment, Flytrex works with corporations together with DoorDash (which additionally works with Wing.
The economics query
Drone supply skeptics level to 1 unresolved subject: price. For years, pilot tasks have been backed, with profitability elusive. Bardin wouldn’t share financials however argued that the timing is correct.
“Throughout autonomy we’re on the inflection level the place unit economics are aligning to make huge development and scale achievable,” he mentioned.
Whether or not that’s sufficient to deliver down the worth of a scorching meal in comparison with a DoorDash driver stays to be seen. Suburban sprawl, regulatory friction and client adoption are all potential hurdles.
Can Waze’s playbook work for drones?
Flytrex is betting Bardin’s expertise at Waze — scaling a client service by focusing relentlessly on consumer ache factors — will be utilized to drone supply.
“We’re laser centered on fixing their actual ache factors,” he mentioned.
The appointment alerts a recent push for a corporation that, regardless of greater than 200,000 deliveries thus far, nonetheless lags behind Wing and Zipline in visibility and scope. The FAA’s BVLOS approval may stage the enjoying subject. The proposed rule to allow routine BVLOS drone operations also needs to take away purple tape.
However historical past means that regulatory wins alone don’t assure a sustainable enterprise.
For now, Flytrex is wagering that meals supply, with its mixture of urgency and excessive margins, is the correct place to start out.
Associated
Uncover extra from The Drone Lady
Subscribe to get the most recent posts despatched to your e mail.
