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 vp 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 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 most important 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 stated in an interview with The Drone Woman. “Customers don’t care about know-how, they care concerning the service.”
He stated Flytrex will first scale in Dallas-Fort Value, the place it already operates, with the aim of including dozens of latest websites this 12 months and masking your complete metro space inside 12 months.
Flying excessive alongside Wing and Zipline
Regardless of the recent management and regulatory momentum, Flytrex should show it may stand sturdy in opposition to larger, 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 growing nations together with Rwanda and Ghana. In 2025, Zipline marked its 100 million mile supply milestone.
Flytrex, against this, is narrowing in on a single use case.
“We’re centered solely on meals supply,” Bardin stated. “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 identify method again in 2017 when it carried out meals deliveries by way of drone in Iceland. A pair years later, it introduced that it could increase to the U.S., beginning with North Carolina. Since then, it’s grown to different areas together with Texas, which is essentially thought-about the main U.S. state for drone supply.
At this time, Flytrex works with firms together with DoorDash (which additionally works with Wing.
The economics query
Drone supply skeptics level to 1 unresolved problem: value. For years, pilot tasks have been sponsored, with profitability elusive. Bardin wouldn’t share financials however argued that the timing is true.
“Throughout autonomy we’re on the inflection level the place unit economics are aligning to make large development and scale achievable,” he stated.
Whether or not that’s sufficient to carry down the value of a scorching meal in comparison with a DoorDash driver stays to be seen. Suburban sprawl, regulatory friction and shopper adoption are all potential hurdles.
Can Waze’s playbook work for drones?
Flytrex is betting Bardin’s expertise at Waze — scaling a shopper service by focusing relentlessly on consumer ache factors — might be utilized to drone supply.
“We’re laser centered on fixing their actual ache factors,” he stated.
The appointment indicators a recent push for a corporation that, regardless of greater than 200,000 deliveries up to now, nonetheless lags behind Wing and Zipline in visibility and scope. The FAA’s BVLOS approval might degree the enjoying area. The proposed rule to allow routine BVLOS drone operations must also take away pink 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 fitting place to begin.
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