What Bitcraze does

Bitcraze AB, headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, develops and sells the Crazyflie, an open-source nano-quadcopter platform aimed at indoor aerial robotics research, higher-education teaching, and industry R&D prototyping. The platform is sold to a global base of academic and government research institutions, with named users spanning Carnegie Mellon University, ETH Zurich, TU Delft, the National University of Singapore, NASA Ames Research Center, the Technology Innovation Institute, and others, and is cited in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications.

The core technology is a modular ecosystem built around a ~30g quadcopter running open-source firmware on an STM32F405 microcontroller. The product family includes the Crazyflie 2.1+ (brushed motors), Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless, and Crazyflie Bolt 1.1 flight controller. More than fifteen expansion decks extend the platform with sensors (flow, multi-ranger, Z-ranger), compute (AI Deck 1.1 with GAP8 SoC), positioning (Lighthouse vision-based, Loco UWB), radios (Crazyradio 2.0 and PA), and accessories. Software is fully open source on GitHub and includes the Crazyflie firmware, the cflib Python library, a Rust client library in transition, the cfclient GUI, the Crazyswarm2 ROS 2 framework, a dedicated demos repository, and a pre-configured development virtual machine.

Bitcraze monetizes the platform almost entirely through direct hardware sales via a Shopify-powered e-commerce store (store.bitcraze.io) and a global network of distributors, with no disclosed subscription or licensing revenue and no publicly disclosed pricing or financials. The company is private, operates with 1–10 employees, and is led by its three founders (Arnaud Taffanel, Marcus Eliasson, Tobias Antonsson). Its go-to-market is product-led and community-driven, relying on academic publications, conference presence (ICRA, European Robotics Forum), GitHub engagement, and technical blog content rather than traditional demand generation.

Name

Bitcraze

Legal name

Bitcraze

Website

https://bitcraze.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Bitcraze, based in Malmö, Sweden, develops the Crazyflie, an open-source modular nano-quadcopter platform for indoor aerial robotics research and education. The company sells drones, expansion decks, positioning systems, and software tools to university research labs, teaching programs, and industry R&D teams worldwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Nano-Drone Robotics Platform

NAICS

Search, Detection, Navigation, Guidance, Aeronautical, and Nautical System and Instrument Manufacturing (334511), Computer and Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing (33411)

SIC

Search, Detection, Navagation, Guidance, Aeronautical Sys (3812)

akta.pro primary industry

Robot Software, Autonomy Stacks & Simulation (ROS, digital twins) (HDAAAIAK)

akta.pro secondary industries

On-Device Inference Runtimes & SDKs (mobile/embedded) (HDAAAJAB), Hardware & Embedded/IoT Programming (Microcontrollers, Raspberry Pi) (EDAMACAL)

Keywords

• Nano-drone platforms
• Open-source robotics
• Swarm robotics research
• Indoor quadcopter systems
• Aerial robotics development

Headquarters

HQ city

Malmö

HQ country

Sweden

HQ region

Europe

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Supply Chain, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Hardware Product Sales: Bitcraze sells its complete line of nano-drone platforms (Crazyflie 2.1+, Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless, Crazyflie Bolt), expansion decks, positioning systems, radios, and accessories through its own e-commerce store and distributor network worldwide.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Bitcraze designs, manufactures, and sells an open-source nano-quadcopter platform (the Crazyflie family) used for indoor aerial robotics research, education, and industrial prototyping. The offering includes modular drone hardware (~30g), a stack of plug-in expansion decks (sensors, compute, positioning, communication), indoor positioning systems (Lighthouse vision-based and Loco UWB), radio peripherals, and a fully open-source firmware and software toolchain (Python, Rust, ROS 2 integration). The ecosystem is sold to research labs, universities, and engineers who need a reproducible, low-cost, crash-resilient testbed for swarm, AI, and control experiments.

Product overview

Bitcraze offers an open-source nano-drone platform centered on the Crazyflie family of quadcopters, designed for research, education, and industrial prototyping. The core products include the Crazyflie 2.1+ (brushed motors) and Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless (brushless motors for higher thrust), plus the Crazyflie Bolt 1.1 for custom embedding. The platform is modular with over 15 expansion decks including the AI Deck 1.1 (GAP8-based onboard AI/computer vision), positioning systems (Lighthouse vision-based, Loco UWB), sensors (Flow, Multi-ranger, Z-ranger), and peripherals (LED decks, buzzer, micro SD storage). Radio communication uses Crazyradio 2.0 or PA dongles. Software includes open-source firmware, Python (cflib) and Rust libraries for host control, the cfclient GUI, Crazyswarm2 for ROS 2 integration, and simulator/tooling. The entire ecosystem is designed for safe indoor flight, swarm robotics, and reproducible research.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Crazyflie: The flagship product line of open-source nano-quadcopters, including Crazyflie 2.1+, Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless, and Crazyflie Bolt 1.1.
• Crazyflie Bolt
• Crazyflie Demos

Products and services

• Crazyflie 2.1+ Purpose-built nano-drone for safe, precise, and repeatable indoor flight in research and development environments. A modular, programmable quadcopter platform with open-source firmware, weighing approximately 30g.
• Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless Enhanced nano-drone with brushless motors offering additional thrust and battery life. Uses DSHOT protocol with BlueJay ESC firmware supporting bidirectional DSHOT for per-motor RPM telemetry. Designed for more aggressive flight and heavier payloads.
• Crazyflie Bolt 1.1 An open-source quadrotor kit designed for customizing and embedding into other devices. Features an extended expansion connector with additional GPIOs compared to the Crazyflie 2.x platforms.
• AI Deck 1.1 Expansion deck with a GAP8 system-on-chip, camera, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Enables fully onboard perception and edge inference pipelines including CNN-based visual navigation on nano-UAVs.
• Color LED Deck LED deck providing programmable RGB LEDs for visual feedback, state indication, and expressive swarm behaviors in experiments.
• LED-ring deck Expansion deck with a ring of LEDs for visual effects and basic state indication.
• Qi 1.2 charger deck Wireless charging deck compatible with Qi 1.2 standard for contact-free power transfer.
• Buzzer deck Audio feedback deck providing buzzer capability for auditory notifications and alerts.
• BigQuad deck Expansion deck enabling connection to larger quadrotor frames with external ESCs and flight controllers.
• Micro SD card deck Storage expansion deck for logging flight data, sensor readings, and other data during autonomous missions.
• Prototyping deck Blank PCB deck for custom circuits, sensors, or other custom electronics experiments on the Crazyflie platform.
• Breakout deck Simple expansion board providing access to Crazyflie pins for custom wiring and external hardware connections.
• Z-ranger deck v2 Height measurement deck using a multi-zone range sensor for precise altitude control and cliff detection.
• Flow deck v2 Optical flow sensor deck for velocity estimation and position hold using laser-based motion measurement, often combined with Z-ranger for hover mode.
• Multi-ranger deck Four-direction laser rangefinder deck providing 360-degree obstacle detection for autonomous navigation and collision avoidance.
• Active marker deck Deck with active infrared markers for precise position tracking in motion capture systems.
• Motion capture marker deck Passive marker deck for standard motion capture systems using reflective markers.
• Loco Positioning deck Ultra-wideband (UWB) based indoor positioning deck using the Loco Positioning System for precise localization of single drones and swarms.
• Loco Positioning node Anchors for the Loco Positioning System that create an indoor positioning infrastructure for Crazyflie localization.
• Lighthouse positioning deck Vision-based positioning deck using SteamVR Lighthouse technology for sub-millimeter precision indoor localization, enabling autonomous swarm flight.
• Crazyradio 2.0 USB radio dongle for bidirectional communication with Crazyflie drones from a computer. Provides improved radio performance for larger groups of drones.
• Crazyradio PA Power amplifier version of Crazyradio with extended range for long-distance drone communication.
• Debug adapter kit Hardware debugging interface for firmware development and troubleshooting on the Crazyflie platform.
• Battery charger LiPo battery charger for charging Crazyflie batteries.
• Propellers 47-17 Replacement propellers for Crazyflie 2.1, with CW (47-17R) and CCW (47-17) variants marked for proper motor direction.
• Crazyflie Firmware Open-source firmware running on the STM32 microcontroller of Crazyflie drones, implementing flight control, sensor fusion, and communication protocols. Supports out-of-tree firmware apps and custom controllers.
• Crazyflie Python Library (cflib) Python library for controlling Crazyflie drones from a host computer, providing APIs for parameter logging, firmware updates, and flight control.
• Crazyflie-lib-rs (Rust) High-performance Rust library for Crazyflie communication with improved swarm responsiveness, native async support, and reduced connection overhead.
• Crazyflie Client (cfclient) Standalone Python GUI application for flying, configuring, and logging data from Crazyflie drones, with features for firmware upgrades, parameter tuning, and flight data visualization.
• Crazyflie-demos Dedicated GitHub repository for self-contained, well-documented Crazyflie demos covering Python scripts, Rust demos, cflib2 demos, out-of-tree firmware apps, and hybrid demos combining onboard firmware with host-side scripts.

Quantifiable outcome

• The platform is referenced in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications across multiple domains
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers17 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration10 records

AI capability10 records

Feature10 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Technical University of Munich - Learning Systems and Robotics Lab (LSY)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2025Collaboration on SwarmGPT, a natural-language-driven swarm control system. The LSY lab developed SwarmGPT to translate natural-language intent into coordinated Crazyflie swarm behaviors. Bitcraze co-demonstrated the system at ICRA 2026 as an interactive booth demo where visitors could prompt the swarm to perform choreographed behaviors. This represents a key human-swarm interaction research collaboration.
• Crazyswarm2 / IMRC LabcoreTechnology or IntegrationCrazyswarm2 is the ROS 2 ecosystem framework for the Crazyflie, enabling standardized multi-drone experiments. The IMRC Lab maintains this external project, which Bitcraze references as the standard way to run ROS 2-based Crazyflie experiments for reproducibility across labs.
• Carnegie Mellon University - Robotic Exploration LabcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on TinyMPC, a model-predictive control solver compressed for resource-constrained microcontrollers like the Crazyflie's STM32F405. Carnegie Mellon researchers developed the solver and integrated it into the Crazyflie firmware, with Bitcraze featuring the work on its blog and community channels.
• TU Delft MAVLabcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerTU Delft's MAVLab collaborated on the Sniffy Bug project, demonstrating a fully autonomous swarm of gas-seeking Crazyflies using evolved Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) parameters. The project validated the Crazyflie as a platform for complex multi-agent algorithms in cluttered indoor environments.
• IDSIA (Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIDSIA researchers developed the bidirectional DSHOT feature and a nonlinear system identification benchmark using the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless. The work produced a dataset of 75k real-world flight samples with synchronized motor RPM inputs and IMU measurements, enabling cleaner system identification algorithms.
• Crazyflie DistributorscoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorBitcraze maintains a network of distributors listed on its Distributors page to serve international customers beyond direct e-commerce shipments. These distributors handle local sales, logistics, and support in various regions.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Emlid: Maker of RTK GPS receivers and the Navio2/Pixhawk-compatible flight controller line, widely used in survey/inspection drones and academic research. Comparable as a small, open-source-focused drone hardware vendor selling positioning/flight-control modules to a similar global research audience.
• PX4 Autopilot: Open-source autopilot software stack widely used alongside Bitcraze on research drones and frequently paired with Crazyflie in academic swarm experiments. Direct peer because both target the same developer/researcher base with open-source flight control and run on overlapping hardware.
• ArduPilot: Open-source autopilot project supporting a wide range of drones. Comparable to Bitcraze in serving research and education users with open-source flight control software and a strong community, although it spans a broader range of vehicle types and lacks Bitcraze's hardware focus.
• Holybro: Open-source drone hardware manufacturer best known for Pixhawk flight controllers and carrier boards. Directly comparable to Bitcraze as both sell modular, open-source drone hardware to research, education, and hobbyist markets, though Holybro focuses on larger platforms while Bitcraze specializes in nano-quadcopters.

Broad incumbents

• Parrot: European consumer and professional drone maker with historical research-friendly products (AR.Drone, Bebop) and the Pix4D photogrammetry suite. Broad incumbent with overlapping research and education customer base, though Parrot has shifted focus away from research drones toward commercial/defense.
• NVIDIA (Jetson / Isaac robotics platform): Provides Jetson edge AI modules and Isaac simulation/robotics platform used heavily in autonomous drone and robotics research. Broad incumbent in edge AI compute — the layer Bitcraze's AI Deck (GAP8) competes against at the low-power end, especially for onboard perception and SLAM workloads.
• DJI: World's largest consumer and commercial drone manufacturer with the RoboMaster series targeting education and the Matrice line for research/enterprise. Broad incumbent with vast resources; not a direct nano-research competitor but represents the alternative platform for many educational and industrial customers.
• Skydio: Leading US autonomous drone maker focused on inspection, defense, and public safety. Broad incumbent in autonomous aerial robotics with significant R&D and a different commercial focus; relevant as a comparison point for the autonomous-drone market Bitcraze's academic users eventually target commercially.

Emerging players

• Auterion: Open-source-based drone operating system and fleet management platform for commercial and government drones. Adjacent competitor in the open-source drone stack with more commercial focus; competes with Bitcraze for the same research-and-enterprise drone software mindshare.
• ModalAI: Provides VOXL-series edge-AI compute platforms for autonomous drones and robotics. Emerging peer with partial overlap: both serve AI-on-drone research and integration customers, but ModalAI focuses on compute/AI modules while Bitcraze is the full nano-platform provider with broader positioning and ecosystem tooling.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/bitcraze
• Xx.com/bitcraze_se
• Facebookfacebook.com/bitcraze
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/bitcraze-ab

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Bitcraze