Parallel Flight Technologies
"100 LB Payload for 1.4 Hours | Made in USA"
Watsonville, California startup building the hybrid Firefly drone, carrying 100 lb payloads for 1.4 hours; born out of the Santa Cruz wildfire crisis.
Parallel Flight Technologies is a drone manufacturer headquartered in Watsonville, California, with roughly 11 to 50 employees. The company was started by a founding team, including co-founders Joshua Resnick, who serves as CEO and CTO, and David Adams, Director of Operations, after several team members' homes and livelihoods were threatened by catastrophic wildfires in the Santa Cruz Mountains. That experience led the founders to develop autonomous, heavy-lift, long-duration drone systems originally intended for wildfire response, under the stated mission of saving lives, property, and the environment. The company's core technology is the Parallel Hybrid Electric Multirotor (PHEM), a patented propulsion architecture that combines a combustion engine with electric motors to give multirotor aircraft far greater range and payload capacity than all-electric drones, while avoiding the need for ground charging infrastructure. This propulsion system underpins the company's flagship product, the Firefly unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which can carry payloads of up to 100 pounds for flight durations of about 1.4 hours, refuels in under five minutes, is portable by two people, and uses a redundant hybrid drivetrain for reliability during autonomous missions. Firefly has received a Federal Aviation Administration Part 44807 exemption, enabling commercial UAS operations in the United States, and in August 2026 it was added to the Federal Communications Commission's list of exempt uncrewed aircraft systems. The company has also worked with the U.S. military: the Office of Naval Research awarded Parallel Flight Technologies a contract worth approximately 3.74 million dollars to develop a maritime-capable version of the Firefly UAS, and the company has collaborated with Alpha Unmanned Systems on heavy-fuel UAS development supporting Navy research. While wildfire response remains part of its origin story, the company states that the use cases for its hybrid drone technology have expanded roughly tenfold since its founding, now spanning commercial, industrial, and defense missions that require extended endurance and heavy payloads beyond what battery-electric drones can deliver. Parallel Flight Technologies maintains an investor portal and a customer intent form on its website to support fundraising and commercial pilot programs, alongside an active presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
Firefly
Hybrid heavy-lift UAS carrying up to 100lb payload for 1.4 hours endurance and 74 miles range, refuelable in under 5 minutes.
PHEM (Parallel Hybrid Electric Multirotor)
Hybrid gas-electric propulsion powertrain underlying the Firefly drone, offering higher energy density than batteries and scalable to other eVTOL/UAS platforms.
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Contact Parallel Flight Technologies
WEBSITE
https://www.parallelflight.comHEADQUARTERS
United States
Company Facts
Founded
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Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
employees 10-50
Primary Region
North America
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
-
Funding Total
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