Swarm Aero gains approval to continue operations in Fayetteville

Oxnard, Calif.-based drone company Swarm Aero won its appeal from the Fayetteville City Council to remain open in an 80,000-square-foot manufacturing center in Fayetteville. The city and company faced pressure from citizens critical of the company’s relationship with the U.S. military.

Early Wednesday (May 20), Fayetteville City Council voted 5-3 to approve the appeal of the Fayetteville Board of Adjustments’ recent decision that could have led to the revocation of the company’s business license.

After residents spoke against the center, the Board of Adjustments voted 3-1 that Swarm Aero’s operations exceeded the use noted on the business license issued in February. Staff previously determined that the business use is manufacturing. Swarm Aero appealed the board’s decision to the city council. The city council’s vote affirmed the original staff determination, allowing Swarm Aero to continue operations at its manufacturing center in Fayetteville.

Swarm Aero provided the following statement on the city council’s decision:
“We are very happy that the city council upheld the city staff’s original determination for our building’s use and are thrilled that Swarm Aero will be staying and growing in Fayetteville.

Mayor Molly Rawn and city staff have been consummate professionals. Their love for this town is evident. We also want to thank all the council members. We understand that this was a difficult vote for many of them. They asked hard questions and always looked out for the best interests of all of Fayetteville.

We want to express our gratitude to the multitude of supporters who came out to ensure that the opportunities advanced technologies offer can find a home here in Fayetteville.

It is now incumbent on us to be the company we said we would be: To create good-paying jobs that hire exceptional people right here in Fayetteville; to be sound environmental and public safety stewards; and to be engaged, responsible members of this amazing, vibrant community.

Thank you, Fayetteville. It’s great to be home.”

Danny Goodman, CEO and co-founder of Swarm Aero, recently explained why the company decided to open the manufacturing center in Fayetteville.

“We looked at 20 states and evaluated a bunch of factors: the workforce, the local partners, access to an appropriate airport,” Goodman said. “And Arkansas was the best of all of those … There is a well-trained labor force in the area. The University of Arkansas graduates 7,000 students a year.”

He said the company’s drones self-deploy, so it needed a site at an airport to manufacture them.

“We’re building a very long-range aircraft,” he said. “It’s designed to self-deploy around the world in these long, one-way trips … There is not, it turns out, all that many smaller airports in the U.S. that have space for significant expansion. Smaller is good because we need to be able to … not interrupt the traffic pattern as we deploy the aircraft that we build.”

Goodman said the Fayetteville site has space to expand as production scales.

“The existence of the space as well as supportive government partners and airport partners to help us work with them and the community is a huge draw,” he said. “So all in Arkansas … won our internal analysis.”

The work underway at the Fayetteville site includes research and development of high-rate manufacturing techniques. It will make test parts from carbon composites. Then, it will make aircraft parts that will be transported across the country for assembly. After the first drone flies, an end-to-end assembly line will be established at the Fayetteville site, enabling drones to be manufactured there. Goodman expects the first drones to fly within the next two years.

“Before we fly, much of the design work and engineering nexus is in our California headquarters,” he said. “As we scale up manufacturing, Fayetteville quickly becomes by far our largest office.”

Over the next decade, the center in Fayetteville is expected to create hundreds of high-skill aerospace jobs. People and machines will assemble the drones.

According to the company, the drones will be the size of a business jet and smaller than many of the jets that operate at Drake Field.

Swarm Aero recently announced its $35 million series A financing led by Two Sigma Ventures and Silent Ventures with participation from multiple seed investors. Swarm plans to use the $59 million in capital it has raised for drone development and deployment. A lot of this will go toward hiring and building the manufacturing center at 3660 S. School Ave. in Fayetteville.