Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Dan Ciprari, Chief Executive Officer at Pointivo:
Q: Dan, what is Pointivo?
A: Pointivo’s software platform automates the inspection of large physical assets. We automate the expensive and labor intensive processes typically required to inspect and assess physical assets by combining machine learning, computer vision, and advanced analytics from drone captured data.
Engineers, telecom tower owners, facility owners and other industries rely on our platform and applications to deliver insights that enhance business processes and decisions relating to measurement, damage detection, assessment, inventory management, budgeting, and risk mitigation.
We have been in business since 2014 and are headquartered in Atlanta, GA. We have 17 patents (10 issued) covering foundational components of asset inspection. We analyzed over 120,000 assets including over 30,000 telecom towers in 2021 and are seeing very strong growth across all customer segments.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: We announced last week that we’ve experienced 100% growth in both sales and transaction volumes for the third year in a row. Drone adoption has been accelerating over the last several years, and so has the need for businesses to get more than hi-res photos and video of their infrastructure.
As soon as businesses start using drones they ask questions like: “but what can we do with the images”, “how can we incorporate them into our business processes to help me?” This is why our analytics platform is so valuable. We utilize efficient photogrammetry, machine learning and AI to extract precise measurement data and instant element/defect identification to automate and accelerate their critical business processes.
We also welcomed telecom industry veteran Pat Lien as VP of Sales and Marketing in January. Pat is a great addition to our team as we look to make telecom a pillar of our growth strategy going forward.
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Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: Here are some real world applications. In the telecom industry, climbing towers is dangerous and expensive work and the industry is experiencing a shortage of qualified climbers. A tower climb has previously been required to do activity such as mapping the equipment and their mounting structures, pre- or post-construction audits, or regulatory required inspections. Today, drones can autonomously fly a telecom tower and our analytics platform automatically generates a 3D digital twin – with precise accuracy – from which all components are identified and exact measurement data is delivered for their engineering deliverables. From drone flight to platform, our output is 8 to 48 hours compared to the industry standard of 7-10 days (or weeks waiting on a tower crew).
Similarly, in the past, a solar estimator would arrive at a customer’s house, climb onto the roof, measure and sketch every dimension on the roof, travel back to the office, translate the sketch into a CAD drawing, then start to design a solar solution. With our platform, that solar estimator can push a button to fly a drone over a roof and by the time he/she gets back to the office a fully detailed and highly accurate engineering drawing of the roof has been created in their solar design software. This saves several hours and eliminates errors from the process.
Imagine a big box retailer trying to plan maintenance of their buildings across thousands of locations. With our platform, they can monitor the status of every building with consistent AI-driven condition assessments that allow more effective allocation of their capital budget.
Q: What can we expect from your company in the next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: Our analytics platform is built by a world-class team of AI and computer vision software experts who never stop innovating. We have a long list of product enhancements across all our product lines. We prioritize these enhancements through a continuous collaboration with our customers to solve their biggest problems.
We streamline processes that help our customers do their work faster, and at lower cost, at the highest standards of quality. We are currently working with our telecom customers to thoroughly evaluate each use case – from sales and lease planning, engineering, and TIA inspections – and refine our AI models to generate the outputs that make our customers’ lives easier.
You will also see us apply our inspection and analytics capabilities to infrastructure in other large industries where drone inspection is now being utilized regularly, such as utilities, energy and renewables.
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Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: The Pointivo platform was built to scale and in 2021 we realized the benefits of that work. We analyzed more than 120,000 structures including nearly 30,000 telecom towers. This is more than 10 times the volume of our nearest competitor.
Another lesser known fact is that our analytics platform is the engine behind many inspection solutions being delivered today. So, when you are getting timely and accurate results from your drone platform provider, chances are those results are probably coming from the Pointivo platform.
