It’s a tragic day for drone fans. Drone company Lily, the developer behind an autonomous camera drone, sent notification to backers allowing them to know that these folks were not able to secure funding to begin with manufacturing. Within 60 days, all money from preorders will be returned to backers. Co-founders Henry Bradlow and Antoine Balaresque apologized to consumers in a email on January 12th:
“I am racing against a clock of ever-diminishing funds. Within the last several months, we have experimented with secure financing for you to unlock our manufacturing line and ship our first units – but are already cannot make this happen. For that reason, we’re also deeply saddened to say that we are planning to wind down the company and provides refunds to customers.”
In a May 2015 video, a promotional video featuring the camera drone was already released showing the “throw and shoot” style of it. Snowboarders and kayakers just tossed these devices into the air and also the drone followed along by way of a band worn to the wrist. Motion picture tallied up over 12 million views and hype with the product was high. The drone was priced modestly at $499 there were reportedly over 60,000 preorders. Manufacturing drones turned into higher priced for Lily compared to they had anticipated, as well as the development process was plagued with issues. Lily’s drone was scheduled to ship in February of 2016, was delayed till summer and then subsequently delayed til early 2017.
Due for the delays, similar products from Chinese manufacturers DJI, Zero Zero Robotics and Yuneec released, which might be part of the reason Lily was unable to secure funding. Read the video and mourn the demise on the drone that will happen to be, below.
