Two entrepreneurs are in the early stages of developing a business that they say could give farmers a valuable tool to increase their efficiency.
Focused AIM — the acronym stands for "Autonomous Imaging and Monitoring" — is designed to use autonomous drones to inspect crops to let farmers know what interventions are necessary.
Brandon Jones and Andrew Farraher, the company's founders, told the Journal Star that Greater Peoria is the perfect place to launch a potentially transformational business — if they can get it off the ground.
Jones traced his fascination with drones back to a childhood spent playing with remote-controlled cars. He moved to Peoria from New York in 2017 after his wife, a medical doctor, secured a residency at UnityPoint Health. He owns and operates DreamHouse Media, a real estate photography and videography company that has allowed him to put his interest in drones to practical use photographing properties.
Farraher is an East Peoria native, whose circuitous career path has taken him from a job at a car dealership to co-founding a roofing company to his current role as the founder of the digital marketing firm Playing In Peoria. He now lives in Marquette Heights.
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The idea
The idea for Focused AIM came out of a conversation Jones had with Nate Domenighini, the managing director of gBeta, a startup mentorship project of the venture capital firm Gener8tor. The pair met at an agricultural technology conference in April in Morton, where Jones pitched the idea of a drone-based crop inspection business. Domenighini was excited about the idea, but had doubts about its scalability — doubts that Jones acknowledged were well founded.
"We'd have to hire an FAA-licensed pilot in every single territory, which can be hard to come by," Jones said.
Shortly after, however, Jones learned that the manufacturer of the drones he used at Dreamhouse Media planned to release a new autonomous drone model. The DJI Matrice M30 can fly programmed routes without human guidance, taking off from and landing on a dock that also serves as a charging platform and storage unit.
"I basically did a backflip," Jones said.
He called Domenighini, who recommended that Jones apply for the Spring 2022 gBeta Peoria cohort, which would give five local startups seven weeks of coaching and an opportunity to connect with Gener8tor's network of mentors and investors. Jones recruited Farraher for his marketing expertise, and the pair applied as Focused AIM. The company was accepted, and Farraher gave an investor pitch at the program's showcase event Sept. 21.
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Getting it airborne
Focused AIM's founders hope to leverage their gBeta connections to gain access to capital from the Peoria investment community. Jones said the company is seeking an initial investment of between $150,000 and $200,000, which will fund the purchase of an initial autonomous unit to serve as a "prototype" for testing and allow him and Farraher to fly across the country for future investor meetings.
Neither Jones nor Farraher has a background in software engineering, so they plan to eventually bring on employees who can handle that side of the business.
Focused AIM hopes to generate revenue through a combination of product sales and subscriptions, a business model its founders said will allow them to flexibly serve farms of various sizes.
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Regulatory roadblocks
Jones and Farraher are betting on a coming change to drone regulations set by the Federal Aviation Administration. FAA rules require that drones remain within the line of sight of their pilots, or within the line of sight of spotters working with the pilot, meaning that autonomous crop inspections are disallowed.
The FAA has indicated, however, that those rules might soon change.
A report from the administration's Aviation Rulemaking Committee released in March found that "it has become evident that the current aviation regulatory framework is not capable of accommodating (uncrewed aircraft) operations at the existing levels, and certainly not at the levels anticipated as the industry grows." The report further contended that the agency needs to update regulations in order to spur growth.
The administration has already issued waivers to a handful of autonomous drone manufacturers, a further sign to Focused AIM, and others like it, that the removal of regulatory barriers is right around the corner.
"The minute that that red tape gets cut through the FAA, it's going to be full go for anybody and everybody who's ever thought about flying a drone commercially," Farraher said. "We're very early in this process, but we're a sniffle away from being in a full sprint."
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Will it stay in Peoria?
Jones and Farraher said that they are committed to growing their business in the Peoria area.
Jones moved to Chicago earlier this year so that his wife could pursue a fellowship, but makes regular business trips back to Peoria. He pointed to the region's strong agricultural sector as well as the startup network that has shown them support as reasons to stick around.
"I don't see us being anywhere else, even as we grow," Jones said. "We kind of owe it to this area to make sure that we stick around."
