Author: Kim-Mai Cutler

A wellspring of interest in quadcopters for commercial applications is advancing globally. From Airware’s recent $10.7 million round from Andreessen Horowitz to the launch of AngelPad’s DroneDeploy, quadcopters are one of the hot, hardware trends that founders and VCs are latching onto.

This experimentation is also happening on the other side of the world. Russia’s UVS Avia is building higher-end microdrones to examine nuclear reactors and waste sites, along with doing search-and-rescue in remote areas.

They built a quadcopter that weighs about 1 kilogram, can fly above 100 meters and has at least 1 hour of battery life. It costs a hefty $40,000, but that’s because local Russian taxes effectively double the price and because they target government and military clients. Commercial drones for hobbyists cost a few hundred dollars, but often only have about 15 minutes of battery life. So far, UVS Avia has sold a “few dozen” drones.

It can be equipped with infrared vision, night vision or radiation protection to fly over sites like nuclear reactors or to monitor nuclear waste.

“Civilian versions weigh about 100 grams, while this is a kilo, which is a lot,” said CIO Maxim Shaposhnikov. “Everything is stronger and better.”

While the hardware for these drones is being commoditized, Shaposhnikov says the real advantage in the future will come from software.

“Normally, even for military use, all drones are managed by humans,” he said. “But our idea is to make the drones completely automatic, like maybe they could fly for months and charge automatically.”

The other thing they want to add is the ability for drones to communicate with each other. He said, you could eventually get 100 or more drones to monitor an entire city in a completely automated process.

“We think the whole industry is going in the same direction,” he said. “In five years, it will be really cheap to make drones, but the intelligence should be really advanced. New batteries are being developed that will allow a five hours of battery life. Everything is moving ahead, so software will be the key.”

The company has raised about 3 million euros in funding from private angels.

Growing up, I pretty much had the standard dolls and toys everyone did — Trolls, Barbies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures.

But with the advent of 3D printing, kids today have access to something truly special: their very own custom-made toys.

A U.K.-based startup called MakieLab is making a bet that the rise of smartphones and tablets coupled with the decline of traditional retailers is making the iPad the right place to sell the toys of the future. And custom 3D printing will let kids have products that no one else does — toys they design themselves.

The startup launched a Makies Doll Factory app last week that lets you design your own unique doll with special hair, facial features and custom clothing. You can then have it 3D printed and sent to you at a price that starts around 59 pounds ($88), excluding shipping. The app has seen about 70,000 dolls designed so far in the first week. (These are dolls designed, not ordered. MakieLab isn’t sharing stats on orders yet.)

“People love the fact that these toys are on demand,” said co-founder Alice Taylor. “Because the child or adult has made the toy themselves, they’ve got a precious relationship with it. The doll has a heirloom aspect to it.”

MakieLab has been running a web-based version of the store for about a year, but this is the first time they’ve transitioned to mobile platforms. Ultimately, they hope their business will offer a mix of real-world and virtual goods. You can design dolls to buy in real-life or eventually there will be options to dress them up with virtual accessories. Like the rest of the gaming world, Taylor says there is a “power curve” dynamic with a small minority of customers being very aggressive with purchases. One had even bought everything in the store twice, she said.

The startup, which raised $1.4 million last year from seed investors, has been working hard to bring down the costs of manufacturing the dolls. At the beginning, it was about 99 pounds ($148). Now the most basic doll (sans hair) will be about 59 pounds, and then probably 20 pounds more if you want a simple outfit and a hairstyle.

“This is a journey we’re on,” Taylor said. “The material costs are quite high with the type of plastic we have.” MakieLab has printers in the U.K. and Amsterdam and ship globally. Right now, about 10 percent of sales are coming from the U.S., and the majority of people who order a physical doll also buy accessories.

“Eventually, we’ll expand it to be like a distributed manufacturing network, rather than having a centralized factory model,” she said. Finding printers has been a “trial-by-fire” effort, she said. “But we’re getting a ton of support. The suppliers and manufacturers want to see this happen.”

The company isn’t profitable yet and margins on each doll are about 20 percent, compared to the 50 percent level you’d see with standard toys and dolls. But Taylor thinks that a Moore’s Law-type effect is starting to kick in for 3D printing. Costs are coming down fast enough, that the MakieLab model will work over the long-run, she says.

The company also has other products in the works that will be more targeted toward boys or other demographics. That could help them reach the scale they need to raise margins.

“What you see now is 20 percent of our vision,” she said. “We want so much to happen faster, and it will happen over time.”

Yes, you can fix that smashed iPhone on demand now. That means no visits to the Apple store, or intensive DIY efforts.

A YC alum called iCracked launched a real-time, iPhone or iPad repair service a little over a month ago.

Think of it like an “Exec” or an “Uber” for your broken iPhone that you can order straight to your door.

With hardly any publicity at all, the service is blowing up: it boosted iCracked’s number of monthly customers by about 250 percent and the company tells me the business is eyeing “eight figures” in revenue for this year. The changes add iCracked to a growing class of startups like Exec, Uber, Zimride’s Lyft, Instacart and Postmates that are all trying to solve the logistical issues of delivering products and services in real-time in urban cities.

“We want to be the ‘AAA’ for your device,” explains AJ Forsythe, the company’s CEO. “We’re doing on-demand repair and buyback for just about every major city in the U.S.”

He shared some of the maps above and below with us, showing actual completed repairs in the last 30 days. Above is the San Francisco Bay Area, and just for good measure to show that this isn’t a Silicon Valley-only phenomenon, he showed us a map of South Florida (below).

“We’re trying to get to a place where we can get someone to them in the shortest amount of time at the click of a button,” he said. He partnered with a 20-year-old from the U.K. named Martin Amps, who had built a dispatch system just months ago. Amps never implemented it because it was so specialized, but Forsythe found him on a Hacker News posting and thought the system could be of use to iCracked.

Up until then, iCracked’s three-prong business model worked similarly. But it didn’t operate in real-time. Customers would have to mail-in their devices or schedule appointments with iTechs.

iCracked earns revenue in three ways: it does 1) repairs, 2) buybacks and 3) sells do-it-yourself kits (pictured right) for people who want to fix phones themselves.

The company has more than 350 “iTechnicians,” who work as contractors and are trained to quickly fix broken iPhones and iPads. They earn decent salaries of between $70,000 and $100,000 a year. Forsythe says he’s selective and he only ends up hiring about 2 to 3 percent of iTech applicants.

While these “iTechs” aren’t full employees of the startup, iCracked earns revenue by selling them parts and connecting them with customers. Depending on whether it’s an iPhone, iPad or iPad and the kind of problem a customer has — whether that’s a screen or battery replacement or water damage — costs hover around $75 to 99. But an iPad LCD replacement can top $200 with the mail-in service.  If you don’t spring for Apple Care, iCracked beats the cost of paying for an entirely new device or spending more than $200 on a replacement phone.

The “iTechs” make up about 50 percent of iCracked’s revenues, while 30 percent comes from the DIY kits and the remaining 20 percent comes from buybacks, where the company will pay to take old, unused iPhones or iPods off people.

The new real-time dispatch service will also change the buyback program. Before, iPhone owners would have to mail in their devices, get an appraisal seven to 10 days later and then get a check in the mail after that.

Eventually, iCracked will be able to send out an iTech immediately, who will estimate the value of the device, and then give the customer a prepaid debit card for that amount on the spot, which can be redeemed at any local ATM.

This complex, real-time dispatch system is a far cry from where iCracked started. It’s one of those humble “dorm room” businesses that emerged out of Forsythe’s time as an undergrad at Cal Poly-SLO. He gained a reputation on campus as someone who could quickly fix iPhones on the cheap. He then turned it into a business, and started charging people at school $75 per fix.

Eventually, he started scaling up iCracked by finding makers of inexpensive screens and then hiring and training other people to repair devices. After that, he joined Y Combinator’s winter class of startups last year.

The business has some angel investment, but Forsythe says he’s shied away from doing a full Series A round. They’re starting to look for additional growth capital now, however.

“We have this thing called — ‘hardware,’” he joked, poking fun at how venture investors seem to favor software startups.