Sees.ai | About us

Unlocking potential

Pioneering tech

Breaking new technical and regulatory ground

Almost every commercial drone mission today is flown using a pilot on site. This distributed approach is unscalable, as it’s inconsistent and expensive. Centralisation is inevitable, driven by economies of scale and the benefits of concentrating expertise. It is the key to unlocking the multi-billion dollar drone industry.

We are breaking new technical and regulatory ground, enabling drone service providers to remotely operate drones on industrial and urban sites from a central control room.

The solution gives pilots full awareness of the drone’s environment in real-time, which allows them to execute complex missions, even close to obstacles. We can facilitate the widest range of missions – from complex, GPS-denied missions (e.g. around construction sites, under oil rigs, inside tunnels); to routine missions (e.g. regular inspections and monitoring); to ad-hoc missions (e.g. immediate response to a security or safety incident or close inspection of a structure with a remote expert in the loop).

CAA collaboration

We are the first drone company seeking to industrialise aerial data capture to be accepted into the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) Regulatory Sandbox.

The Regulatory Sandbox was launched in April this year to create an environment where innovation in aviation can be explored and flourish in line with CAA core principles of safety, security and consumer protection. We are in good company – the likes of Amazon and Volocopter are among the handful of companies to be selected.

The collaboration between sees.ai and the CAA will allow both organisations to explore frameworks under which regulatory approvals for routine ‘beyond visual line of sight’ (BVLOS) operations can be granted.

sees.ai Pathfinder

sees.ai is leading a new pathfinder as part of The UK Drones Pathfinder Programme. The UK Drones Pathfinder programme aims to rapidly drive progress in unmanned aviation technology and regulation, enabling industry and the public sector to fully exploit the market in different industry sectors.

Pathfinders take a phased approach to achieving routine use of drones within the UK and focus on identifying and overcoming the technical, operational, and commercial barriers for bringing a new BVLOS drone-based service to market in the UK.

The sees.ai Pathfinder plans to tackle the technical and regulatory challenges associated with drone BVLOS services by deploying their system on several industrial sites with Skanska, Atkins and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service. These demonstrations will be supported by NATS, Vodafone, Foster + Partners and SLAMcore. They are expected to be completed by August 2020.

The Drones Pathfinder Programme is managed by the Connected Places Catapult, under the governance of the DfT, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Connected Places Catapult.

For more information on the Programme and Pathfinder projects please visit: https://cp.catapult.org.uk/case-studies/pathfinder

Leadership team

Our founding team are ex-Apple, CERN, McLaren, Oracle Racing and multi billion dollar hedge funds. Between us we’ve won a Formula 1 World Championship, two America’s Cups, we’ve led the team that designed and built the first hybrid engine ever used in a supercar – the £1m McLaren P1 – and headed up the European team at Eton Park, a hedge fund with $14bn assets under management.

We are experts in robotics & autonomy; control systems & dynamics; GPS-denied navigation; RF comms; embedded systems; and high-risk operations.

John McKenna

CEO

Meet John

Previously, Managing Director, BeTomorrow UK; Investment Advisor to Makani Power (now inside Google X); Group Commercial Director, OC Sport (joined as 6th member of staff, acquired ten years later by Telegramme Group with 100+ staff); Consultant at Marakon Associates; and Structural Engineer at ARUP. John brings 18+ years of commercial expertise to the team working in high-growth start-ups and private companies.

Eduardo Aldaz Carroll

CTO

Meet Eduardo

Previously, Manager Touch & Sensing Innovation Team at Apple Cupertino; 2x Winner of the America’s Cup with Oracle Racing (personally designed the mechatronic daggerboard control system that contributed to Oracle winning the Cup in 2013); Electronic & Controls Engineer at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics).

Eduardo has 15+ years experience in electronic system design and implementation, with in-depth knowledge of robotics, embedded systems, hardware and software design.

Richard Hopkirk

VP Engineering

Meet Richard

Previously, Technical Director at Ben Ainslie Racing (led team of 45 engineers, setting technical strategy and delivering the America’s Cup race boat); Hybrid Function Group Manager at McLaren (led the team that designed and delivered the McLaren P1 hybrid powertrain); Race Team Tactician at McLaren Racing (responsible for comms and tactical execution ontrack for Lewis Hamilton in the 2007 – 2009 F1 seasons); Powertrain Simulation & Testing at McLaren F1. Richard is passionate about delivering innovative engineering and the effective management of teams to achieve this.

Damien Charveriat

VP Software

Meet Damien

Previously, Simulation Expert at Ineos Team UK (led the team developing the physics simulator used to optimise design of the America’s Cup race boat); Currency Portfolio Manager, Hutchin Hill Capital (hedge fund with $4bn assets under management – led a team of developers designing a bespoke risk analysis and market screen for large scale systems); Head of European Derivatives, Eton Park (hedge fund with $14bn assets under management). Damien is a software expert with 15+ years experience delivering complex systems designed to give the user a clear competitive advantage.

Amanda McKenna

VP Customer

Meet Amanda

Previously, Co-Founder and Partner at Zone, the largest independent digital agency in the UK prior to its acquisition by Cognizant in November 2017. Zone is a customer experience agency with deep expertise in strategy, technology and content & experiences. The agency’s 300-strong multi-disciplinary team creates award-winning customer experiences for some of the biggest brands in the world. Amanda is passionate about human-centred design, helping translate user insight into digital experiences that customers value and enjoy.