About

Apellix brings the precision of science to the commercial and industrial coatings market using computer-assisted drones to precisely apply coatings in otherwise dangerous employee situations. The Apellix Worker Bee is the only drone-based system that physically interacts with its environment and actually accomplishes work – completing dirty, dangerous, and dull tasks while protecting employees from dangerous environments.

The coating, painting, cleaning, and maintenance of large-scale infrastructure such as water towers, bridges, skyscrapers, oil & gas manufacturing facilities, and ships is dangerous and expensive. In 2017 workers still paint from perches on structures, on scaffolding and on cranes; Climbers working on towers have a fatality rate that is 10 times that of construction workers. In the United States alone, 95 climbers working on industrial towers died between 2004 and 2012.

The underlying paint application technology has not changed substantively since the introduction of the airless spray system in 1957. The industry remains driven by the judgement and skills of the painter, typically based on anecdotal evidence acquired through varying levels of experience. Because of the physical limitations of a worker’s reach, each painter essentially provides a patchwork of seams where they smooth or blur the edges to provide the appearance of a continuous application which delivers an inconsistent paint thickness. Because the application of coating (outside of limited situations like assembly lines) remains for many an outdoor task, there is a dearth of scientific feedback such as applied paint thickness to inform the painter.

Apellix is changing the industry through its patented and patent-pending Apellix Worker Bee™ and Smart Bee™ aerial robotics system. Through the use of our Worker Bee™ system, a single painter can increase their actual painting productivity 8-12 times the current levels. That does not include time spent setting up scaffolding, operating cranes, and climbing towers. Imagine a worker being able to paint a power transmission tower while remaining safely on the ground, or the same worker painting the outside of a 50,000 square foot building in a single day. Along with the performance improvements and the additional precision, Apellix also affords a robust project record including environmental data, paint system sensor data, paint thickness records and video confirmation that allows for a diagnostic should any problems arise with the coating.

In addition to coatings additional applications of our platform are numerous: cleaning industrial equipment without exposing workers to harmful chemicals, painting bridges without the danger of workers falling, rapidly deploying shelter to disaster areas, and 3D-printing at tremendous scale anywhere.

Labor and materials for the painting and coatings market is valued at around over a quarter of a trillion dollars annually. For each one percent efficiency in the market Apellix is able to achieve we create $2.5 billion dollars of value. In each of our focus industries, oil & gas, maritime, and infrastructure, we have identified an addressable market segment in excess of $2 billion dollars. It is clear that Apellix has potential to be a great force and has changed painting forever.