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An early player in drone-tech, 3D Robotics Inc.<\/a>, announced that it has raised $53 million in a Series D round<\/a> of funding on Thursday, including new equity funding and conversion of debt equity. Atlantic Bridge led the round joined by Autodesk Forge Fund, True Ventures, Foundry Group, Mayfield and other undisclosed investors, according to the company statement.<\/p>\n The company didn\u2019t break out how much new capital\u00a0it saw coming in the door in this round. We reached out for more information. But for now, it\u2019s hard to ascertain how much runway the Series D investment gives 3DR, which is attempting a major metamorphosis.<\/p>\n Since about 2015, 3DR has been working to turn its business into a competitive enterprise software player. Its competition today is more about Drone Deploy<\/a>\u00a0or Airware<\/a> than DJI<\/a> or Parrot<\/a>. That wasn\u2019t the original plan, of course.<\/p>\n In 2009, 3DR started off selling drone components to the DIY set. It later launched a consumer drone, the Solo<\/a>, built with\u00a0open source architecture. But it halted production of those in 2015 after challenges controlling quality, manufacturing costs, and predicting demand, among other things.<\/p>\n Chris Anderson<\/a>, the company\u2019s CEO and founder (formerly the editor in chief of Wired) then turned his focus to the commercial and industrial drone market. He saw the Part 107 regulations<\/a> taking shape in the US that would usher in the use of drones in day-to-day operations on farms, construction sites and more.<\/p>\n Now, the company sells its Site Scan<\/a> product as its flagship. Site Scan is primarily\u00a0software-as-a-service that enables drone users to precisely control their flights\u00a0and on-board\u00a0cameras, then send data straight from those to the cloud.<\/p>\n 3DR promises Site Scan users integration with Autodesk\u2019s BIM, or building information modeling tools. Autodesk invested in 3DR<\/a> back in 2016 when it launched its Forge Fund. It also serves as a channel partner for 3DR, \u00a0helping the born-again startup make inroads into the massive construction market.<\/p>\n Today, 3DR\u2019s\u00a0Site Scan lets users overlay the high-res imagery and data that they have captured via drones with site plan information stored in Autodesk\u2019s BIM<\/a>, or use those images in conjunction with geographic information services like Esri. Overlaying this data gives contractors, structural engineers and architects a way to quickly and visually identify potential problems, and avoid building delays.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve reached out to\u00a03DR and some of its investors\u00a0for more information about what the company\u00a0will do given its new funding, and the health of its business today. But these sources were not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n According to the company statement published Thursday, 3DR plans to\u00a0invest its capital in building out Site Scan and marketing it within construction and engineering industries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n