# Simplycity — Business Model and SC-17’s Role

**Date:** 27 September 2026 (v2; first issued 21 September 2026) · **Status:** operating-model hypothesis for partner validation

## Positioning

Simplycity is **not** a drone manufacturer and **not** a delivery company. It is the coordination and assurance platform for regulated urban drone services: the neutral layer that enables licensed operators, care providers, infrastructure owners and public authorities to run reliable drone services in a city. Its product is the shared operational system—rules, data, workflow and proof—not the aircraft or the parcel movement itself.

## The business model

Simplycity solves the coordination gap that remains after an aircraft and a customer exist: route permissions, pads, weather, operator readiness, public visibility, chain-of-custody and evidence of public benefit.

| Product layer | Customer value | Revenue basis |
|---|---|---|
| **Flow** — mission orchestration | Converts a care request into an eligible mission; checks route, weather, pad, aircraft, operator and energy constraints; manages exceptions. | Corridor onboarding fee; per managed/completed mission; operator platform subscription. |
| **Trust** — shared assurance | Role-based dashboards and auditable records for hospitals, operators, hub owners and authorities. | Annual platform / assurance licence; integration and support retainer. |
| **Impact** — public-value evidence | Reports reliability, delay, route compliance, energy and measured noise at route level. | Reporting/governance module that a city programme, authority or consortium *might* pay for. **Excluded from the base case**: unproven until a pilot exists. |

For an early care corridor, the commercial construct is a funded pilot consortium: an onboarding fee for integration and route setup, a per-mission orchestration fee, and a fixed monthly platform/assurance fee. The care provider buys a transport outcome; the licensed operator bills for aircraft, remote operations and maintenance; Simplycity bills for coordination, visibility and evidence.

**The core business has to work if the city pays €0.** Municipal or authority revenue is treated as expansion upside, never as base-case revenue.

### Illustrative pricing hypothesis (to validate with the first customers)

| Revenue line | Hypothesis | Who pays |
|---|---|---|
| Corridor setup | €60,000 one-time | Care sponsor |
| Mission orchestration | €9 per mission | Care provider / operator |
| Platform (Flow + Trust) | €5,500 per corridor per month | Care provider / operator |
| Integration retainer | €18,000 per partner per year | OEM / operator |
| Impact / governance reporting | €24,000 per corridor per year | Authority: upside only, excluded from base case |

At 12 movements/day this gives about €98k recurring revenue and €66k contribution per mature corridor (67% gross margin), with roughly 10 corridors needed to reach €1m ARR, or 7 at 30 movements/day. Seen from the hospital's side, Simplycity is about €27 of an estimated ~€95 all-in air movement, against ~€45 by road courier. **Whether the time saved is worth that premium is the central commercial hypothesis.** The live model is at simplycity.nl/platform/economics.html; full tables are in the Investor Brief, section 9.

### Revenue phases

1. **Pilot:** the healthcare sponsor pays setup, integration and mission fees.
2. **Commercial corridor:** the healthcare provider or operator pays platform + per-mission orchestration.
3. **Multi-corridor city:** adds assurance, governance and impact reporting.
4. **Network:** multi-operator, multi-OEM, multi-city platform.

**Intended moat: a hypothesis, not yet demonstrated.** Operational integrations, regulatory workflow knowledge, corridor data, stakeholder relationships, standard OEM/operator interfaces and a historical trust record. An operator or OEM can build coordination for its own fleet; a hospital, city or second operator needs a layer none of the competing suppliers controls.

## Responsibility boundary

| Party | Owns |
|---|---|
| Care provider | Clinical request, samples and clinical chain of custody |
| Licensed operator | Flight execution, operational safety, maintenance and crew/remote operations |
| OEM | Aircraft design, product support and technical data |
| Hub owner | Pad, site access and ground safety |
| City / authority | Policy, permissions and oversight |
| **Simplycity** | Mission coordination, data integration, audit trail, stakeholder views and impact reporting |

Simplycity does **not** design, manufacture, certify, sell or warrant aircraft; become a logistics carrier; make OEM performance claims; or replace the operator’s safety-management system or the authority.

## Competitive landscape

Medical drone logistics is no longer hypothetical in the Netherlands or Europe, and Simplycity should say so plainly rather than pitch into an apparent vacuum.

| Who | What they have done | How Simplycity differs |
|---|---|---|
| **ANWB Medical Drone Service** (NL) | A consortium of ANWB Medical Air Assistance, PostNL Health and healthcare partners including Erasmus MC, Isala, Sanquin, Amsterdam UMC and UMCG, with Avy (aircraft) and KPN (connectivity). Over 800 flights between Isala Meppel and Isala Zwolle in its first year, testing BVLOS operations through all seasons; in August 2026 the pilot was extended to mid-2027 with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Isala, KPN and LVNL (source: anwb.nl/medical-drones, August 2026). | A single-vendor, single-corridor operating consortium, not a reusable coordination platform. It does not offer a fleet-agnostic release-policy engine, a tamper-evident cross-organisation ledger, or a repeatable playbook for a second or third corridor. |
| **Avy** | Amsterdam-based electric VTOL aircraft OEM/operator; holds a BVLOS operating certificate; is the aircraft inside the ANWB corridor. | An aircraft and operator — a candidate integration partner for Simplycity, not a competing coordination layer. |
| **Apian** (UK) | Flew 6,000+ pathology samples for Synnovis between Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals, now deploying Matternet aircraft to Synnovis's Blackfriars hub, which processes about 20,000 samples a day. Integrates multiple aircraft platforms into hospital systems. | The closest existing analogue to Simplycity's model, and evidence that a coordination/integration layer is a fundable, operable business. Not present in the Netherlands or wider EU mainland market as far as public information shows. |
| **EASA / U-space service providers** (e.g. ANRA, first certified May 2025) | Certified airspace-level services: geo-awareness, flight authorisation, network identification, traffic information. | Infrastructure Simplycity sits above and consumes, not a substitute for it — the release policy's `route_available` and `weather_within_limits` gates are exactly where a U-space/UTM provider's data plugs in. |

**The honest reading:** Amsterdam UMC already having a drone relationship through the ANWB consortium is evidence of validated demand at the exact hospital network this plan is built around, not evidence that the opportunity is closed. What ANWB/Avy have built is one operator flying one fixed route; what Apian has proven in the UK is that a reusable multi-stakeholder coordination and evidence layer is a real, fundable business. Nobody has built that layer for the Dutch or wider EU market yet. Simplycity's opening is to interoperate with existing operators — potentially including Avy — rather than compete with the aircraft, and to become the coordination and evidence layer a second, third and tenth corridor can reuse. Amsterdam UMC's specific current relationship with the ANWB consortium should be confirmed directly with the hospital before this claim is used in front of investors.

## Why SC-17 was designed

SC-17 is a **reference configuration**, not a Simplycity product line. It is a disciplined design brief for the first corridor: compact rooftop operations, 2.5 kg medical payload, wing-borne cruise, and transparent energy/service data.

1. It makes the operating envelope concrete. A route, pad and safety procedure cannot be designed around the word “drone.”
2. It creates a supplier-neutral requirements aid. Several OEMs can show how their existing aircraft meet the same corridor needs.
3. It exposes the data contracts Simplycity needs: state of charge, health, payload state, ETA, route compliance, noise and contingency status.
4. It makes the complete partner narrative visible without claiming Simplycity manufactures or flies a vehicle.

If an existing OEM aircraft fits the verified requirements better than SC-17, Simplycity should select it. The recommended next artifact is an **OEM-neutral aircraft requirements specification** based on the reference envelope—not a plan to build SC-17.

## Guardrail

Unless the founders explicitly decide to become a regulated OEM or operator, label all SC-17 material **“reference configuration / supplier-neutral requirement aid.”** Do not market it as a Simplycity aircraft, add aircraft sales to the model, or promise its performance as a Simplycity capability.