One of the cornerstones of any retail business is maintaining accurate inventory data. Whether it is a company selling, for example, automobiles or one that sells the parts for the automobiles, it is vital to know exactly how much product you have and where these products are located. To keep track of everything in warehouses, regular inventories are taken. This can be a very time consuming, error prone procedure. New technology that tracks barcodes has made it easier to track inventory, but for the most part, it is still a timely and expensive manual process. In an effort to make it even more streamlined, companies have begun investing in drone technology to manage inventory checks.

In 2017, KG Ganapathi founded Vimaan with a vision of disrupting the standard way of maintaining warehouse inventory management. Based out of Santa Clara, California, Vimaan has been applying drone technology to provide real time inventory data from the moment of receiving goods to stocking, shipping, and everything in between to accelerate supply chains. Using drones, “Vimaan uses a proprietary and sophisticated hardware module to capture the environment, and then applies computer vision and AI models to extract actionable and usable information from this data,” said KG. But the drone data goes beyond scanning product barcodes.

With the drones, Vimaan makes a digital replica of a warehouse that includes product barcodes, product markings like text and logos, object dimensions, bin locations, the efficiency of storage space, safety measures, and can even track theft. “Vimaan provides a high level of accuracy in packing and shipping against the packing list, which in turn reduces unnecessary costs from customer claims, chargebacks, and reverse logistics,” KG said. “A manager who manages multiple warehouses can use this data for other powerful analytics that supports comparison of warehouse performances, tracking seasonal trends, and more.”

Since Vimaan first began dismantling warehouse inventory logistics, it has provided customers with an average of 98% accuracy. This translates to companies being able to save millions. Due to the pandemic, warehousing companies around the world faced challenges in finding people to work and complete inventories. “The Vimaan solution strikes at the heart of these issues, automating highly repetitive tasks that are unsafe and inefficient,” KG explained. “Prior to the pandemic, warehouses experienced challenges in employee recruiting and retention. The pandemic further compounded these industry wide pains; the automation and efficiencies delivered by the Vimaan platform frees up existing personnel to perform higher-valued functions in the warehouse.”

On January 26, 2022, Vimaan announced that it had completed a Series A fundraising that would allow them the opportunity to enhance the drone inventory system, introducing it to more warehouses around the world. Vimaan raised $25 million from unmanned industrial venture capitalists New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Wing VC, and Neotribe Ventures. With this new funding, Vimaan hopes to strengthen its already existing customer relationships and begin new ones. According to the company website, the enhanced drone program will allow companies to “reduce auditing and shipping expenses by 75%, while achieving nearly 100% in inventory accuracy.”

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