Rantizo ag drone company moving to new facility in southwest Iowa City

Three years after its founding, Rantizo has outgrown its current Iowa City location.

Rantizo, an agricultural drone-spraying company, is moving from its 105 Iowa Ave. office to a new facility close to Highway 1 at the southwestern edge of Iowa City.

'We'll have everything under one roof with offices, workshops, places to fly the drone and trailer,” said Michael Ott, Rantizo CEO.

'We can all be in one cohesive building.”

Iowa Economic Development Authority gave the Iowa City company a $46,720 tax credit for the project, which will result in six new jobs, as part of its High Quality Jobs program.

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors matched the funding.

Ott said Rantizo's employee base has been 'growing rapidly,” particularly in sales and software development.

'We're seeing a lot of demand and want to be able to service that well,” Ott said.

The company operates in 18 states, Ott said, despite some regulatory challenges getting drone pilots certified during the pandemic.

'The normal stuff you take for granted was very difficult to do,” Ott said.

In some states, drone pilots needed to take the tests in their cars because of safety concerns for being in the same room.

The new Iowa City facility is supposed to be done by June, according to an Iowa Economic Development Authority document.

'We hope to be there sooner,” Ott said. 'But everything should for sure be squared up by then.”

Looking ahead, Ott sees plenty of additional room for the Iowa City-based company to expand further.

'We've still got a long ways to go to grow,” Ott said.

'We're planning on building for scale. We want it to be replicated in multiple geographies by multiple contractors.”

Rantizo offered its drone-spraying technology for stadiums as well for sanitizing seats. Sales on that have been slow to take off, though.

'We were really early to that party,” Ott said.

'No events were happening, so we were a little early to that party.”

Comments: (319) 398-8394; john.steppe@thegazette.com