Lucid Bots washed a 23-story casino tower by drone and opened a $250 waiting list with no price on it
A rooftop pulley carried the hose so a Sherpa drone could clean 280 feet up a Colorado casino tower. Lucid Bots, which raised $20 million in March, is now taking $250 refundable deposits on a product with no published price or rated height.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
A tower washed from the ground up
Late September, in the mountain town of Black Hawk, Colorado, a Sherpa cleaning drone from Charlotte robotics maker Lucid Bots climbed the full 280 feet of the Monarch Casino Resort Spa's 23-story hotel tower, washing as it went 1. The town sits roughly 8,000 feet above sea level, where thinner air makes lift harder to generate 1.
What made the job possible sat on the roof: the Sherpa HighLine, a software-controlled motorized pulley unveiled a month ago, on October 1, that carries part of the cleaning hose's weight so the aircraft carries less 12. "Without it, we couldn't have completed the project on time," said Parker Eakins, owner of Oklahoma Drone Technologies, one of three operators on the job 12.
A ground-fed drone's load grows with every foot of height
A drone fed by a ground pump must carry the suspended hose and the water standing in it, and every foot of height adds another foot of hose 1.
Drone trade publication DRONELIFE puts the Sherpa's working height at about 150 feet, and Lucid Bots' own product page describes 180 feet in supported configurations 34.
A $250 deposit before the price exists
The rooftop pulley took one job to 280 feet, which the company calls the highest drone cleaning in the United States 1. Lucid has published neither a maximum supported height nor a price 45. Its store takes $250 refundable deposits, credited toward a purchase that still requires company approval and paid training, and final pricing is not set until the company finishes costing the parts 5. Limited release is planned this quarter, full production in early 2027 15.
Drone cleaning height jumped from about 150 feet to a 280-foot demo
The rooftop pulley roughly doubled working height in a single job
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Sherpa rated height | 150 ft |
| Sherpa supported configuration | 180 ft |
| Monarch job with HighLine | 280 ft |
The business under the demo
Lucid Bots raised a $20 million Series B in March, co-led by the venture firms Cubit Capital and Idea Fund Partners, bringing total funding to $34 million; the startup accelerator Y Combinator is a backer 36. The model is equipment plus control: the operator brings the contract, Lucid supplies the tools and approves who may buy them 6.
Its network of more than 400 operators across 40-plus states has generated over $75 million of cleaning revenue, with nearly 1,000 robots deployed and 8,760 cumulative flight hours logged by mid-August 67. The company says Sherpa cuts job time 2–5x, operators report payback in under two months, and 2025 revenue matched its first seven years combined 6.
Whose money, and what to watch
Those traction figures are the company's own, and the deposit count is private. Nothing in the record yet shows window-washing crews working on ropes losing work, though founder and CEO Andrew Ashur, who started the company after watching window washers fight wind on a platform in college, says about one worker dies cleaning a building every four days 3.
Lucid Bots is private: the money in belongs to its venture backers, and no listed company is exposed. The store listing is the thing to watch. A published price and a rated height would turn 280 feet into a repeatable spec, and open mid-rise bids to operators who turn them down today 15.
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