Drones Startups

Aerones provides robotic inspection, cleaning, coating, and repair services for wind turbine blades. The company serves wind park operators in the renewable energy sector.

14 investors

Corvus Robotics builds autonomous drones that perform warehouse inventory scanning and material handling automation for large enterprises across North America. The company develops the physical artificial intelligence systems for warehouse operations at Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies.

9 investors

Lucid Bots designs and manufactures commercial robotics and drones for exterior cleaning and building maintenance in the construction and facilities management industries. The company's Sherpa cleaning drone performs high-reach tasks for professional contractors, property managers, universities, and medical facilities.

9 investors

Iris Automation develops artificial intelligence software that enables industrial drones to operate autonomously, with a focus on collision avoidance capabilities for safer operations.

7 investors

Albacore develops mass-producible long-range drone submarines (Ghostfin platform) designed for military autonomous underwater operations. The systems use commercial off-the-shelf components and advanced propulsion technology to enable extended transit and loiter times, with embedded autonomous navigation and analytics for remote mission execution.

6 investors

JetPack Aviation designs and builds turbine-powered micro VTOL aircraft, including jetpacks, developing everything in-house from mechanical to flight systems. The company has produced VTOL aircraft featured in films, commercials, and air races.

6 investors

Paladin develops autonomous drones and operational software for emergency response and public safety. The company provides first responder agencies with drone technology to improve situational awareness and response times during fires and other emergencies.

6 investors

Zeitview provides advanced inspection software for high-value infrastructure assets including solar, wind, properties, telecom, and utility infrastructure. The platform uses aerial imagery and inspections to help operators monitor asset condition and performance throughout their lifecycle, enabling better decision-making and cost efficiency in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure.

6 investors

Exosonic develops supersonic unmanned aircraft for military adversary training, with plans to advance the technology toward crewed supersonic passenger aircraft. The company is building a subscale test vehicle to validate autonomous flight and human-unmanned aircraft coordination.

5 investors

Kalam Labs designs and manufactures high-altitude hydrogen-based unmanned aerial vehicles and stratospheric platforms for military and defense applications, including surveillance systems, autonomous weather platforms, and stealth strike swarms capable of operating at 100,000+ feet. The company serves the Indian armed forces with edge-of-space aerial warfare technology developed and manufactured in India.

5 investors

Tornyol develops lightweight autonomous drones equipped with sensors and control software to target and eliminate mosquitoes. The technology aims to reduce the cost of mosquito control for urban pest management and disease vector elimination.

5 investors

Buoyant Aero provides fully electric, self-flying aerial advertising platforms (blimps) as a service for brands and events. The company handles all aspects from envelope design and custom graphics to flight operations and audience engagement, targeting marketing teams and event organizers.

4 investors

Radical Aero builds StratoSats, autonomous solar-powered aircraft that operate at 65,000 feet for extended periods to deliver persistent high-performance infrastructure. The company develops stratospheric platforms for communication and data services.

4 investors

Seeing Systems develops intelligent unmanned systems and autonomous drone platforms for advanced defense applications, combining AI and robotics expertise to deliver cost-effective solutions for training and contested military operations.

4 investors

Velontra develops jet propulsion systems across the Mach spectrum, focusing on low-cost, high-volume manufacturing through vertically integrated design and rapid development cycles.

4 investors

Elodin provides a cloud-based simulation platform for building autonomous systems, targeting developers and engineers creating satellites, drones, and robots. The company aims to make advanced autonomy tooling accessible and affordable to innovators in aerospace and robotics.

3 investors

TerrAvion collects and delivers weekly aerial imagery at high resolution for agricultural operations, positioning itself as a cost-effective alternative to satellite and drone-based approaches. The company supplies raw imagery data to agronomic service providers and crop consultants who integrate it into their advisory and decision-support offerings for farmers.

3 investors

Theseus builds robotic situational awareness software using visual positioning for drones that operate in GPS-denied environments. The company serves military and defense platforms, providing a Micro Visual Positioning System designed for contested operational conditions.

3 investors

Earendil develops advanced vision and targeting systems for military and tactical operations, including augmented reality soldier systems, autonomous drone interceptors, and thermal sight products designed for situational awareness and threat detection in contested environments.

2 investors

IMPACT builds a containerized counter-drone defense system that autonomously detects, launches, and intercepts hostile drones, pairing two interceptors: HUNTER for close-range low-altitude threats and SABLE for fast, long-range movers. It targets protection of high-value sites such as data centers, power substations and plants, and airports.

2 investors

Mass Magnetics manufactures high-performance neodymium-iron-boron rare-earth magnets in the United States from recycled and domestic feedstocks, using a rapid sintering process and machine learning to sort scrap by grade and chemistry. It targets defense and industrial buyers needing DFARS-compliant domestic magnets and also sells DFARS-compliant rare-earth alloys to domestic metallurgists.

2 investors

Ornadyne makes flapping-wing unmanned aircraft designed to resemble birds for covert reconnaissance missions. The company addresses limitations of conventional drones by engineering systems optimized for stealth, endurance, and autonomous operation in field environments.

2 investors

Rownd AI manufactures fully autonomous drones equipped with edge-based intelligence and satellite/cellular redundancy to remove operator dependency, currently deployed with U.S. Special Operations Command and commercial enterprises.

2 investors

Vernius makes drop-in hardware modules that add autonomous or operator-assisted targeting to existing FPV interceptor drones. The module sits between the drone's receiver and flight controller to provide beyond-visual-range sensing, autonomous guidance, or target bearing data for manual pilots, aimed at low-cost, high-volume defense deployment.

2 investors