Singapore

The problem

Last-mile delivery is the most expensive and least efficient part of getting anything to anyone. A package can cross an ocean for a few cents and then cost several dollars to travel the final two miles. In dense neighbourhoods, couriers lose hours to double parking, stairwells, buzzers that don’t work and traffic that never clears. Those costs land on every order, and they fall hardest on pharmacies and independent grocers that can’t match the logistics budgets of the largest retailers.

Why now

Three shifts made this the right moment. Regulators in several countries finally published clear rules for flights beyond the pilot’s line of sight, replacing case-by-case waivers with predictable approvals. Battery energy density improved enough that a small aircraft could carry a meaningful payload across a neighbourhood and back on a single charge. And consumers, after years of rapid delivery, began to expect prescriptions and groceries within the hour. Each change alone would not have been enough, but together they turned drone delivery from a recurring headline into an operating business with real unit economics.

The founders

Nick Alvarez and Jess Moreau met while building flight controllers for industrial inspection drones. Nick had spent years making aircraft hold steady in gusting wind above refineries; Jess had written the software that let a single operator supervise a dozen flights at once. Both had watched delivery pilots stall in endless trials, and both believed the problem was not the aircraft but the operating model around it: permits, routes, landing points and the trust of the people living underneath.

Why we invested

Elias flew one of their prototypes across a rooftop test course the week we met them. What stood out was not the hardware, which was good, but the boring parts the founders had already solved: a landing cradle that bolts onto a pharmacy roof in an afternoon, a noise profile tuned for residential streets, and a safety case written in the language regulators actually use. We wrote our first check before they had a formal deck, because the plan was already visible in the product. Our conviction came from watching a team that treated compliance as a feature rather than an obstacle.

How we helped

After the round, Elias spent most Fridays with the team for the first year. We introduced them to two regional pharmacy chains that became their first paying customers, helped them hire a head of operations who had run an airline maintenance program, and joined early meetings with city aviation officials. When a component supplier failed mid-pilot, our platform team found a replacement manufacturer within ten days, which kept the launch on schedule.

Where they are now

Singapore now runs scheduled drone routes for pharmacies and grocers in three cities, delivering prescriptions and essentials in under twenty minutes. Its safety record has turned regulators into allies, and two of its early pilot cities have written its operating procedures into their own guidance for new operators. The company is expanding into hospital-to-hospital lab sample transport, where speed is not just convenient but clinically important. Nick and Jess still personally review every new route before it goes live.