• On the ground in Malawi during a recent campaign in support of COVID-19 effort. [Swoop Aero]
    On the ground in Malawi during a recent campaign in support of COVID-19 effort. [Swoop Aero]
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Melbourne based Swoop Aero, the aeromedical logistics company, has closed a Series A funding round with returning investors Right Click Capital and Tempus Partners, following a year of continued global momentum.

The homegrown start-up will use the latest capital injection to scale their impact from millions to tens of millions as they aim to provide one hundred million people with better access to healthcare by 2025.

Swoop Aero will establish a further presence in Australia and NZ, and will expand its service offering across the medical logistics space. The funding will also serve to certify its aviation systems for operations over urban areas which will help the business come closer to their goal.

Since its launch in 2017, Swoop Aero has established operations in five countries through partnerships with global health leaders including UNICEF, UKAid and DFID, impacting over two million people, and most recently became the first company in the world to remotely pilot commercially used drones from another country, when delivering PPE and critical supplies in Malawi during the COVID-19 pandemic, whilst piloting the aircraft from Australia. Since the onset of the pandemic, in Malawi alone, Swoop Aero has tripled its fleet following a rapid increase in network utilisation due to a 300 percent increase of samples carried between March and April 2020.

With its sights firmly set on establishing a presence in ANZ, Swoop Aero has most recently begun working with the Civil Aviation Authority of NZ to achieve requisite Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) approvals to transport pathology tests and samples locally via the air.

The company has already been working closely with the Australian government and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to slash red tape and enable aeromedical logistics services to be expanded across the country.

In Australia alone, five percent of pathology test samples are lost due to inefficient delivery methods, and often take up to a few weeks to return results. Using aeromedical drone logistics to transport medicines, pathology tests and samples, reduces chances of lost tests and improves turnaround times, enabling communities in urban, rural and remote areas faster, on-demand access to testing and supplies.

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