Zipline, a Bay Area startup funded by Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, and others, has raised $18 million to develop a fixed-wing drone system to fly medical supplies in Rwanda.
Zipline founder, Keller Rinaldo, started Zipline in 2011 and is developing a system for delivering blood and other medical supplies to remote regions in the country.
“Getting medicine to remote places is a huge market and global challenge”, says Rinaldo.
The planes can carry a payload of 3.5 pounds, can speed along at 60 mph, and have a round trip range of 75 miles. They can also drop the supplies by parachute, negating the need to relaunch from the destination. The planes are launched by a high-powered catapult.
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