Identified Technologies Drones Take Roost in New Nest
Pittsburgh, PA— June 2, 2015 — Identified Technologies has rapidly grown from lone founder Dick Zhang, to a team of a dozen, largely CMU robotics grads, who just moved from East Liberty’s Alphalab Gear’s accelerator into their new office at 6534 Hamilton Avenue behind Bakery Square on May 5th 2015.
Dick says, “Every entrepreneur feels like their new business is their baby. It takes a village to raise a child, and we have been very blessed to a part of such a generous and nurturing village. We would not be where we are today without the support of Alphalab Gear, Innovation Works, Birchmere Ventures, and the entire Pittsburgh Startup ecosystem. Our progress is a testament to the community’s ability to attract, develop, fund, and scale innovative new businesses, and we are very grateful to be a part of it.”
Jonathan Shapiro, the property manager for the new office said “The building sat vacant for 25 years before Identified Technologies came in and renovated it. They are breathing new life into the neighborhood, and we hope they are the first of many startups filling offices in the area as they grow beyond their accelerators or co-working spaces.”
Dick attributes the demand that has fueled their rapid expansion to their product and location. Identified Technologies offers proprietary drone systems that automate monitoring, measuring, and mapping for industrial job sites, such as mining, construction, and energy. Their Pittsburgh, PA headquarters places the company in the heartland of a 1.2 billion dollar market in the local PA, WV, OH Marcellus shale region, which expands to a 20 billion dollar market of over 200,000 job sites across the US.
“The number of sites we can market Identified Technologies to is extensive, we should only be limited by how quickly they can expand operations.” – Rick Celender, Principal, CEC
Identified Technologies automates job site data capture and analysis with a proprietary self-piloting Boomerang™ drone and LaunchPad™ smart dock system. The mapping drone flies itself above job sites automatically, captures the data, and lands itself back on the dock station, which lives on the client site throughout the project. The dock station then swaps and charges the drone’s batteries, and sends the data to the cloud for customer analysis wirelessly. Armed with accurate, continuously updated data, their customers are operating significantly faster and more efficiently, seeing up savings up to 30%.
When asked whether they were suffering from “Empty Nest” back at Alphalab Gear with Dick Zhang and team gone, program director Ilana Diamond said “Every time another of our startups gets large enough that they are ready to spread their wings, and build their own nest, it means we’ve done our jobs. Our responsibility to our startups, and this region, is to get young companies ready to survive and thrive without us, on their own. Our partnership with Identified Technologies has only strengthened over time, and provides a good example to other startups of what they can aspire to.”
Identified Technologies Alpha Lab Gear office neighbor, Avishai Geller CEO of Maven Machines, which offers smart headsets for truckers said, “On weekends, or late at night, while some other companies were at home, Maven and our neighbors at Identified Technologies were still burning the midnight oil together. It really helps you to stay motivated when you have someone else by your side, cheering you on, and going through the exact same thing. Even though we miss them, as we watched them outgrow their office, we knew it was time for them to move on. They’re just down the block, so we’re still always helping each other with new challenges and opportunities.”