It’s also alleged that at the time of shooting the video, “Lily Robotics did not have a single Lily Camera prototype that had all the features advertised.” Instead, it used some prototypes - “which looked good on the outside but were not fully functional” - for “beauty shots.” Others “had some functionality but did not look like the product being advertised.” “I think we should be extremely careful if we decide to lie publicly.” But I am just speculating here: I don't know much about lenses but I think we should be extremely careful if we decide to lie publicly,” Balaresque wrote in another email to the producer of Lily’s promotional video. “I am worried that a lens geek could study our images up close and detect the unique GoPro lens footprint. “However, we do not feel comfortable telling people that we shot scenes with a GoPro (because the whole thesis of our product is that you do not need a GoPro),” the email continued.
In one of those emails, Lily CEO Balaresque wrote that the shots in the promotional video that are branded to come from a Lily drone would actually be captured with a “GoPro mounted to a Lily prototype.”
These seem to expose the key problem: The jaw-dropping Lily footage purported in its promotional video wasn’t real. (Lily initially sold for $499, but by 2016, the company was collecting $899 from customers hoping to receive one of its drones.) Lily never shipped a single drone it sold, yet continued to promise customers the flying robot they bought would soon come.Ī spokesperson from the San Francisco District Attorney’s office told Recode the city has been investigating Lily for months, and multiple emails collected from the company are cited in its lawsuit. Lily’s supposedly “false and misleading” video went viral, attracting more than $25 million in preorder sales in just six weeks after it was released in May 2015, according to the lawsuit. It also portrays a company that promised unreasonable ship-date estimates, violated rules around delays, and had no system in place to handle the international orders it was receiving.
#CAMERA DRONE PROFESSIONAL#
The suit, filed on behalf of the people of California, alleges the drone company intentionally misled customers with its promotional video that greatly exaggerated the drone’s smart, automated videography abilities - by shooting with a GoPro camera and a manually operated professional drone from rival DJI. 12 - the same day Lily announced it was shutting down - in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, which makes some allegations public. Meanwhile, those involved in running and funding the company have been unusually silent - suspiciously so - about the specific reasons for its unexpected collapse, which makes it seem like there could be more here than just a failed hardware startup.Īnd there is already one lawsuit, filed on Jan. 12, 2016, still suggested drones would start shipping that month. This despite its last public tweets, posted on Dec. Employees were notified “several weeks ago,” according to a rep.
The money was kept in “cold storage,” according to a source close to the company. The company claims it really will be refunding preorders.What happened? And why wasn’t the more-than $34 million in pre-sales - and $15 million in investment - enough to get Lily off the ground? “As a result, we are deeply saddened to say that we are planning to wind down the company and offer refunds to customers.” “Over the past few months, we have tried to secure financing in order to unlock our manufacturing line and ship our first units - but have been unable to do this,” founders Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow wrote in a blog post. 12, 2017, it announced it was shutting down before shipping a single device it sold. It fetched millions of dollars worth of preorders, raised money from top-tier technology investors and hit unexpected snags leading to inevitable delays. The company launched in mid-2015 with a promotional video of a breathtaking new gadget - in this case, a camera drone that automatically follows you around. The rise and fall of Lily Robotics, a camera drone startup, follows a now-familiar script:
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