In January 2017, the company behind the highly anticipated Lily drone announced that it would be shutting down after raising over $34 million from backers. The company was quickly sued and accused of misleading people with a faked promo video. However, it looks like Lily is now making a bit of a comeback.
Yesterday morning, the company behind the 'throw-and-shoot' Lily Drone announced that they would be shutting down despite raising $34 million in pre-sales and $15 million in private funding. But their press release left one thing out: they're also being sued by the San Francisco district attorney's office.
When the Lily camera drone was announced back in May 2015, the world was so excited by the idea of an easy-to-use throw-and-shoot drone that the company raised $15 million in private funding and saw over $34 million in pre-orders. But now it seems that the project won't ever be taking off: the company just announced that it will be shutting down.
One of the biggest drone stories in 2015 was the unveiling of the Lily drone, a robotic device that makes shooting aerial photos and videos as easy as tossing a drone into the air. There's no complicated piloting: AI, computer vision, and GPS help take care of everything for you.
It's a idea that has attracted a huge amount of interest: after announcing $15 million in private funding last month, Lily is revealing now that it has received a whopping $34 million in pre-orders from 60,000 customers.