Five years ago, what started as three nervous Norwegians meeting on the street has grown into a drone company enabling sustainable deliveries, senior care and more in challenging conditions.
Lars Erik Fagernæs, Herman Øie Kolden and Bernhard Paus Græsdal studied at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, but their paths crossed for the first time in MIT Vocational Education Advanced Studies Program in 2019, while they were worried about their upcoming English exam. From there, each of them took a different path in the Advanced Study Program: Fagernæs studied computer science, Kolden took applied physics, and Græsdal took robotics. Months later, as the world came to a standstill due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the three of them found their professional paths intertwined.
At the height of the pandemic in 2020, Fagernæs, Kolden and Græsdal launched Birds —drone delivery company Aviant flew blood samples over Norway’s expansive countryside to support remote hospitals diagnose Covid. Today, their drones are delivering groceries, over-the-counter medicines, and takeaways to populations outside city centers.
Using dynamics
The pandemic has abated, but the need to deliver medical samples remains. Remote hospitals still require reliable and brisk sample transport, which Aviant continues to provide through its commercial contracts. In 2021, Aviant’s founders decided to utilize their momentum to reach the largest market in autonomous transportation: last-mile delivery.
“Yes, you need more volume to make sense of the business plan,” Fagernæs explains of the expansion. “Yes, it’s a lot more risky, but if it works out, it’s a huge opportunity.” The Norwegian government and the various venture capital firms backing Aviant agree that the risk was worth their investment. Aviant has secured millions of dollars in funding to explore the consumer market with its latest offering, Kite.
To scale operations, drone delivery still needs to appeal to the general public. Highlighting the environmental benefits of air delivery over conventional road delivery, founders say, could be the most compelling factors driving drones into the mainstream.
So far, Aviant has flown more than 30,000 kilometers, saving 4,440 kilograms of carbon dioxide that would have been emitted by conventional transportation methods. “It makes no sense to use a two- or four-ton vehicle to transport one or two kilograms of sushi or medicine,” Fagernæs argues. “Cars also destroy roads, and there are a lot of car accidents. By flying, you not only take cars off the road, [deliveries] “With drones, it’s also much more energy efficient.”
Aviant’s competitors—Alphabet among them—are encouraging Fagernæs and Kolden to continue to improve their nicknamed “Viking drones.” Designed to withstand harsh Norwegian winter conditions and high winds, Aviant’s drones are well-suited to serving remote areas in Europe and the United States, a market they hope to enter soon.
MIT’s Unparalleled Work Ethic
Fagernæs and Kolden owe a lot to MIT: it was there that they met and where they founded their company. After completing the Advanced Study Program, Græsdal decided to return to MIT to pursue his PhD. The professors and mentors they worked with throughout the Institute played a key role in getting Aviant off the ground.
Fagernæs recalls the early stages of discovering the theoretical limit of drone flight; however, he quickly ran into a hurdle that neither he nor his colleagues had experience in obtaining such data. At that point, there was probably no better place on Earth. “We thought, OK, we’re at MIT, so we might as well just ask someone.” Fagernæs started knocking on doors and was eventually directed to the office of Professor Mark Drela.
“I remember meeting Mark. A very, very humble guy who just said to me, ‘Lars, yes, I’ll help you, read this book, look at this article.’” It wasn’t until Fagernæs met Kolden and Græsdal again that he realized he had asked some of the leading experts in aerospace engineering the basic questions and really appreciated Drela’s patience and support. The trio also credit Professor Russ Tedrake with inspiring their current careers.
In addition, the work ethic of their fellow Beavers inspires them to work tough to this day. “I was finishing up an assignment and I think I left the Strata Student Center at 5:30 [in the morning] and it was half full,” Kolden recalls. “And that really stuck with me. And even as we run Aviant now, we know that to be successful, you have to work really, really hard.”
“I’m impressed with how much Aviant has accomplished in such a short period of time,” says Drela. “Bringing drones to a wider audience will greatly improve the delivery of high-value, time-critical cargo, all at a much lower cost than current alternatives. I can’t wait to see how Aviant evolves over the next few years.”
“For the good of humanity”
Drones are the future, and Kolden is proud that Aviant’s electric drones are setting a sustainable precedent. “We had the choice to use gasoline-powered drones. It was very tempting because they can fly 10 times farther if you just use gasoline. But we had just come from MIT, we were working on climate problems. We just couldn’t look ourselves in the mirror if we were using gasoline-powered drones. So we went electric, and now it’s paid off.”
In an age of automation and the perceived decline of human connection, Kolden had a moment of doubt about whether drones were part of the dilemma. “Are we creating a dystopian society where my grandfather just meets a robot, says, ‘Here’s your food,’ and then flies away again?” Kolden asked himself. After deep conversations with industry experts and considering Norway’s low birth rate and aging population, he now believes drones are part of the solution. “Drones will help a lot and actually make it possible to take care of all people and give them food and medicine when there simply aren’t enough people to do that.”
Fagernæs also takes to heart the MIT mission statement, which encourages students to “work smartly, creatively, and effectively for the good of humanity.” He says, “When we started the company, it was about using drones to help society. We started flying during the Covid pandemic to improve healthcare logistics in Norway, where people were not getting diagnosed with Covid because of a lack of logistics.”
“The success story of Lars Erik, Herman, and Aviant makes us proud of what we do at MIT Professional Education,” says Executive Director Bhaskara pants. “To share MIT knowledge that leads people to innovate, to be entrepreneurs, and, most importantly, to fulfill MIT’s mission to work for the betterment of humanity. Kyte is a great example of that.”