Bobby Healy
3 Apr 2026OpenAI $852B, Legora $100M ARR, SpaxeX IPO, April Fools Award
Bobby Healy: Manna's $50M Series B and Drone Delivery Regulation
Bobby Healy, founder of Manna drone delivery, discusses the $50m Series B led by ARK Invest announced the day before, along with a jobs announcement. He traces growth from zero deliveries in 2018 to 250,000-plus (2 million expected this year), saying the business runs with airline-grade governance while working with Irish, EU and US regulators, aided by formulaic EU rules signed into law in early 2023 and an engaged regulator in Ireland. He expects three or four players — Manna, Google, Amazon — to carve up the market, since even well-funded teams need 3+ years of safety and regulatory work, making it too late for new entrants.
The Future of Drone Delivery: US Suburbs, UK Potential, Fragmented Europe
Healy predicts most of the 92 million suburban US homes will get drone delivery within three to five years — never city centers — and ranks the UK, with 1.4 billion food deliveries a year, as the second-best market after the US despite regulatory lag and a Brexit hiccup; fragmented Europe sits two to three years behind the US and China. In Dublin, Just Eat and Deliveroo orders already arrive by drone more often than by road, with about 97% availability over the last 12 months, requiring little more than $100 rubber mats and a mesh of 3-4km radius hubs flown from central depots. He hopes Manna will be operating in the UK by the end of the year, closing out the show.