SPH Engineering — the Riga-based developer behind UgCS flight planning software and a range of specialized industrial drone payloads — has launched a marketplace connecting enterprise clients with vetted operators and equipment rental partners across 38 countries. The platform launched in late May 2026 with more than 30 vetted partners covering applications most drone marketplaces don’t touch: Ground Penetrating Radar, magnetometry, bathymetry, methane detection, gamma-ray spectrometry, and other heavy industry and environmental survey use cases.
Even before this launch the drone marketplace space has been busy. Competitors include FlyGuys, DroneBase and Zeitview, and many have struggled with the ability to generate consistent deal flow. Sure, supply side (hiring qualified pilots) is easy, but the demand side is hard.
But SPH Engineering CEO Alexey Dobrovolskiy says the company is working on something different, and it could be huge for people working in heavy industry, geophysics, or environmental research.
What SPH is building
The drone marketplace category tends to assume the job is matching a pilot to a project. FlyGuys, DroneBase, and similar platforms do that by connecting certified pilots with enterprise clients who need aerial data capture. It works well for commodity use cases such as construction progress documentation, real estate photography and standard visual inspection.
SPH is targeting something narrower and considerably more technical.
“While most of the other platforms excel at matching pilots for standard visual inspections and photogrammetry, the SPH Engineering Marketplace is focused on a narrower and more technical segment,” Dobrovolskiy told me. “Drone-based data collection that often requires sensors, trained operators, and domain expertise.”
The applications he’s describing — Ground Penetrating Radar for underground utility mapping, magnetometry for mineral exploration, bathymetry and hydrometric surveys, methane gas leakage detection, gamma-ray spectrometry, environmental monitoring — are generally hard to source through a general pilot network. With these, it’s not enough to have a certified pilot and a DJI Mavic. You need the right sensor, the right drone platform capable of carrying it, operator training in that specific sensor workflow, and domain knowledge in data processing for that application. Finding all of that locally, quickly, is a real problem that generic pilot marketplaces don’t solve well.
“These are not always easy to source through a generic pilot network,” Dobrovolskiy said. “It is about finding the right combination of sensor, drone platform, workflow knowledge, data-collection methodology, and local availability.”
The rental angle
Then there’s another feature that makes this marketplace most distinct from its competitors: the equipment rental model. Engineers who already have a drone but who need a specific payload for a one-off project can rent high-value sensors through the network rather than buying hardware they’ll use twice.
“SPH offers a true hardware rental model, allowing enterprise teams with existing pilots to directly rent payloads for one-off projects, effectively shifting a massive CapEx barrier into a manageable OpEx,” Dobrovolskiy said. A drone-mounted LiDAR system, magnetometer, or GPR payload can easily run tens of thousands of dollars. For a university environmental study or a one-time infrastructure survey, buying that hardware outright makes no financial sense, but renting makes it more possible.
The drones available for rent come from other partners. However, those parties have to handle their own logistics, including shipping, customs, insurance and liability if equipment is damaged.
“Rental terms are coordinated directly between the requester and the rental provider,” Dobrovolskiy said. “Cross-border rental can depend on the specific payload, destination country, customs requirements, insurance, project duration, operator qualification, and liability terms.”
Dobrovolskiy said, though, that it can be well worth it for both parties.
“Partners get to put their high-end gear to work, helping pay off equipment that easily costs tens of thousands of dollars,” Dobrovolskiy said.
Will it work?
The marketplace launched May 25, so it’s too early for meaningful transaction metrics.
“This first version is designed to test demand, understand the types of requests received, and identify which regions and application areas generate the strongest interest,” Dobrovolskiy said.
He did shared though that within the first day, the platform received around 70 applications and inquiries, including approximately 40 new partnership requests. For a brand-new platform targeting a technical niche, that’s a reasonable early signal — but it’s applications and inquiries, not completed projects.
And a good chunk of the deals are from North America. “The U.S. and Canada account for approximately one-third of our total partner network, with around 30 partners out of 100+ globally,” Dobrovolskiy said. “Partner sales in North America grew by 30% year over year from 2024 to 2025.”
SPH Engineering’s business model
The SPH Engineering Marketplace does not operate as a transaction marketplace nor does it take a commission on projects or rentals.
Instead,the platform is a connection service, where the commercial relationship lives between the client and the partner, not through SPH. That reduces SPH’s direct revenue from the marketplace but also reduces friction and gives SPH flexibility to operate it as a customer acquisition and ecosystem development channel for its core UgCS software and payload hardware business.
SPH’s core business is UgCS flight planning software and its own specialized sensor hardware. But Dobrovolskiy said that the marketplace is not necessarily intended to be a funnel for SPH’s own products.
“Whether you’re flying DJI, ArduPilot, or PX4, or using high-end sensors from brands like YellowScan and Velodyne, we’ve always focused on smart integrations,” he said. “We’re not here to build a closed-loop sales pipeline. We see our mission as making cutting-edge drone data accessible, understandable, and affordable for everyone.”
That’s what he said, and SPH’s history with UgCS — which has long supported a wide range of drone platforms and third-party sensors — is reasonably consistent with it. But it’s worth watching as the platform matures whether the routing algorithm favors partners using SPH hardware and software over those who don’t.
In a crowded marketplace for drone jobs, SPH’s specific angle (specialized industrial and geophysical applications where the payload is the hard problem, not the pilot) is a more defensible niche than general-purpose pilot matching. Throw in the rental model and SPH’s existing installed base of UgCS users, and it may have a leg up from competitors.
If you work in geophysics, hydrology, energy, mining, or environmental research and have spent time trying to source a local operator with a specific sensor, the marketplace is worth a look. Visit sphengineering.com/marketplace for more information.
For everyone else, it’s a space worth watching to see whether specialized vertical focus can succeed where generalist drone marketplaces have struggled.
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