Procore Technologies is buying DroneDeploy for approximately $845m (£632m) in cash.
DroneDeploy delivers visual intelligence about sites and projects as three-dimensional ground and aerial imaging. The imagery is generated by drones, ground-deployed robots and mobile, fixed, and wearable cameras. “When combined with Procore AI, that visual data can be translated into information and observations that can drive autonomous action within Procore,” the software developer said.
It continued: “By pairing DroneDeploy’s technology with Procore, manual jobsite inspections and observations will be replaced by multi-modal perception capabilities. A range of cameras, drones and robots will regularly evaluate the construction site and automatically initiate appropriate responses securely, compliantly, and in context.”
Amid the acute labour shortage in the construction industry, this practical automation helps support overscheduled field teams, Procore adds.
Once completed (likely to be later this year), the deal will bring together two extensive, domain-specific datasets. Procore’s record of construction decision-making encompasses nearly 400 million photos, more than 126 million drawings, and more than 10 million RFIs, submittals and inspections in the last year alone.
DroneDeploy’s visual record of physical builds spans approximately 20 trillion square feet of visual data for the built world, tens of millions of user-generated annotations, and more than 100,000 labelled safety issues.
Accelerating AI strategy
Ajei Gopal, president and CEO of Procore, said: “Once the acquisition closes, we plan to immediately cross-sell DroneDeploy’s solutions into our broader customer base and vice versa. For the longer term, adding DroneDeploy’s technology into the Procore platform will enable us to accelerate our AI strategy and deliver digital coworkers that track what’s happening on a project, make sense of it, and then take action to change the outcome.”
Mike Winn, CEO of DroneDeploy, added: “DroneDeploy was built to give people who build, power and feed our world a source of truth about the physical site. Over the last decade, our customers have consistently told us the same thing – they want reality capture to be a native part of how they work, not another tool bolted on. Joining Procore accelerates that mission.
“Going forward, we remain committed to delivering the best ground and aerial reality capture solutions – deeply integrated into Procore to drive automated action – while building on our early investments in AI and robotics. We’re excited to build what’s next together.”
Earlier this week, Procore announced the launch of more AI agents.
