With the global commercial drone market projected to grow from roughly $30 billion in 2024 to more than $54 billion by 2030, Rapid Drone is making its official debut as a specialized aerial intelligence and drone services provider, not a drone manufacturer. Entering the market at a moment of accelerating adoption and rising expectations for safer, smarter field operations, the company designs, operates, and manages mission-ready drone programs that deliver dependable, real-time intelligence for public safety agencies and critical industries.
“Better information changes outcomes. It saves time, avoids costly mistakes, and for first responders, it can save lives,” said David Rietz, Chief Drone Officer at Rapid Drone. “We built Rapid Drone to deliver aerial intelligence services that teams can trust in high-stakes environments.”
Rapid Drone’s leadership and technical teams bring together more than $2 billion in real estate development experience, over 15 years of national public-safety foundation leadership, and two decades of hands-on UAV engineering. Supporting that expertise is a board of advisors drawn from law enforcement and retired military leadership, providing operational insight shaped by real-world emergency response, infrastructure protection, and mission-critical decision-making.
Rather than producing hardware, Rapid Drone deploys and manages a fleet of USA Blue Certified aircraft, handling everything from flight operations and data capture to analysis and integration. The Company’s initial offerings align with increasing demand from both public and private sectors, particularly as stakeholders transition from intermittent drone usage to sustained, intelligence-oriented operational models. The public-safety drone market alone is expected to more than triple over the next decade as departments invest in faster situational awareness and safer response models.
Rapid Drone’s capabilities span a range of mission-critical applications, including drones-as-first-responders programs that provide real-time aerial intelligence for police and fire agencies during active incidents; autonomous security patrols that deliver continuous, hands-free monitoring for corporate, industrial, and critical-infrastructure sites; and precision mapping services using survey-grade photogrammetry and LiDAR to generate orthomosaics, terrain models, and detailed 3D reconstructions. The company also supports infrastructure inspections through thermal and high-resolution imaging for utilities, bridges, towers, pipelines, and transportation assets, as well as agricultural intelligence services that use RGB, thermal, and multispectral analytics to detect crop stress, disease, and irrigation inefficiencies.
“First responders and critical industries are being asked to do more with fewer resources, and technology has to rise to meet that moment,” said Co-Founder Debbie Steinhauer. “Our focus is on making advanced aerial intelligence operationally realistic, dependable, and accessible for the teams protecting communities and essential infrastructure.”
Over the next several years, Rapid Drone plans to expand its DFR programs, strengthen partnerships with police and fire departments nationwide, and scale remote-operations capabilities across AEC, agriculture, and infrastructure. The company’s long-term vision centers on integrating drone intelligence into everyday workflows, helping organizations transition from isolated deployments to continuous, data-driven operations.
