Quickstep Holdings and Swoop Aero enter into a strategic supply partnership.

Melbourne, AUSTRALIA: Swoop Aero has strengthened its partnership with Australia’s largest independent aerospace composites business, Quickstep Holdings Limited, after accepting a strategic investment as it prepares to significantly scale up manufacturing in 2022.

With demand for reliable, sustainable, and scalable drone logistics increasing across the world, the investment from Quickstep is part of a strategic supply partnership with the high-growth Melbourne-based startup to expand its advanced manufacturing capability and support its continued growth.

The partnership will underpin Swoop Aero’s continued focus on building sovereign manufacturing capability, the resilience of which proved to be a significant strength of the organisation in overcoming the industry disruptions caused by COVID-19.

“Our organisation is Australian made and grown, so our strategic supplier-operator collaboration with Quickstep maintains our dedicated trajectory to keep our innovation and manufacturing local, driving outcomes for Australian industry which in turn is delivering impact across the globe,” said Swoop Aero’s CEO and co-founder Eric Peck.

“With demand for our services increasing worldwide, this strategic partnership will further support the growth targets for our manufacturing capability. Thanks to Quickstep, we can guarantee that our manufacturing team can meet the increased demand for our aircraft, with up to 1000 aircraft already planned for manufacture in 2022.”

Swoop Aero’s next-generation aircraft, the Kite™, was announced in July this year and is one of the most advanced commercial drones to be progressed through Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification in the United States.  Built for flight in urban and remote environments alike, Kite™ is backed by Swoop Aero’s comprehensive technology platform.

Since the aircraft’s release, the demand for Swoop Aero’s service and platform partnerships has continued to significantly increase, with a strong cross-continent customer pipeline emerging from the United States, Europe, Africa, and Australia.

Mark Burgess, CEO of Quickstep Holdings Limited added,

“We are delighted to be partnering with a purpose-driven organisation like Swoop Aero. They are developing world-leading technology and infrastructure to deliver a revolution in drone-based logistics that will positively impact large sections of humanity. This relationship allows us to leverage the very best of Australian advanced manufacturing, software development, and ingenuity and take it to the world.”