Jennifer Richter Quoted in The Deal on Growing M&A Activity in Drone Sector

Jennifer Richter, head of the communications and information technology practice at Akin Gump, has been quoted by The Deal in “Private Briefing: AE Industrial Sees Runway for Drone Platform,” an article that looks at the growing M&A market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

The article reports that just a few years ago, the UAV industry was still emerging from growth stages and did not offer the scale or market adoption to justify a large private equity platform or significant M&A activity. That has changed, though, with several recent transactions.

Richter said she has noticed moves by private equity and strategic companies that understand that many technologies have to come together to make the dreams of using unmanned aircraft a reality. “Some of the work is being done by large aviation interests, but some of it is being done by startups that make attractive acquisition targets, particularly the companies that are developing the aircraft,” Richter said.

From her perspective, Richter stated that the effort underway to build communications networks and capabilities for unmanned aircraft reminds her of when the first cellphone networks were formed.

“In order to have thousands of drones flying for various purposes, at scale, we need a real-time digital, robust system that can support communications on the ground, in the air, between unmanned aircraft and manned aircraft,” Richter said. “It needs to be safe, redundant with low latency.  It needs to be reliable and relatively free from interference.”