- Acodyne raised €2.5 million in pre-seed funding to develop unmanned cargo drones for defence, offshore, and remote logistics applications.
- The round was jointly led by Gungnir Capital and PSV Hafnium, with participation from EIFO, SAP9 Group, and GreenUP IV Invest.
- The funded E100 prototype carries 100 kilograms at 450 km/h. Future variants with payloads exceeding 500 kg are expected within a two-year horizon. First flight tests are planned before the end of 2026.
Copenhagen-based startup Acodyne has raised €2.5 million in pre-seed funding to build unmanned cargo aircraft for defence, offshore, and remote logistics applications.
The round was jointly led by Swedish defence VC Gungnir Capital and Danish PSV Hafnium, with participation from Danish state fund EIFO, SAP9 Group, and GreenUP IV Invest, a Danish syndicate established in partnership with DTU Science Park to support early-stage deep tech startups.
The funded prototype, called the E100, carries 100 kilograms and uses ducted-fan motors instead of the propellers most competitors use. The same fan technology is found on commercial jet engines, but smaller and electric. Autonomy is handled by eTHOR, an AI flight and operations stack developed in collaboration with DTU Compute, which supports both manual and autonomous operations.
“For so many years, the fastest and most efficient way of transporting heavy goods has been with a ducted fan motor. We’re betting that’s still the winning technology, instead of just scaling up propellers,” says Jasmina Pless, co-founder and CCO, Acodyne.
The global cargo drone market is valued at roughly $2.1 billion today and is projected to reach $103.7 billion by 2035, as militaries and offshore operators seek alternatives to helicopters that cost hundreds of thousands of euros per day to keep flying near rigs and conflict zones.
A decade in the making
Founded in late 2023, Acodyne is based at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby, with a flight-test site at Avedøre Airfield outside Copenhagen. The team numbers 10 across four co-founders and six staff.
The four co-founders bring backgrounds from the Danish Ministry of Defence, Scandinavian Airlines, Cobham Aerospace Communications, and DTU Space.
CEO Mads Schnack worked on counter-drone systems and JTAC at the Danish Ministry of Defence. CTO Claes Nicolaisen is a helicopter and fixed-wing pilot with 25 years in aviation, including Scandinavian Airlines. Chief Electronic Engineer Martin Arndt brings 25 years of experience in aerospace communications and aircraft systems certification from Cobham Aerospace Communications and DTU Space. CCO Jasmina Pless is a former economic diplomat who supported deep tech companies in Silicon Valley.
“Schnack and Nicolaisen always had this big dream of creating an unmanned aircraft. They’ve been in a basement for 10 years, screwing and drilling and thinking about it,” Pless tells Tech Funding News.
Built for the missions where speed matters
Acodyne’s claimed top speed is 450 kilometres per hour, roughly double the speed of a typical helicopter, though the comparison depends on the model. The range is 500 kilometres, extending to 1,000 kilometres in a hybrid configuration.
The platform’s detachable wings allow the entire system to be transported in a standard 20-foot container, enabling rapid forward deployment without specialist logistics infrastructure.
In defence, resupply still relies on either slow land transport or helicopter missions, which expose personnel and aircraft to threats. In offshore operations, a single missing component can halt production at hundreds of thousands of euros per day, and a helicopter is typically the only way to deliver it on time. In remote regions such as Greenland, critical supplies can take days to arrive by any other means.
Acodyne’s platform supports multiple mission profiles: standard cargo, airdrop, MedEvac, and communications. The modular architecture is designed to scale, with future variants exceeding 500 kg payload expected within a two-year horizon.
“Acodyne is a fundamentally new take on unmanned military logistics: jet-class speed, helicopter-class payload, full ground-to-air autonomy, all-electric. It collapses one of the most expensive line items in modern operations, manned helicopter logistics, into a platform that needs no crew in the threat envelope. NATO needs resilient, scalable resupply that works,” says Max Villman, managing partner, Gungnir Capital.
“We backed Acodyne early, and it was their engineering progress, including independent third-party validation, that convinced us to help bring Gungnir and EIFO into the round. This funding takes Acodyne from validated concept to pre-production prototype, and toward an aerial logistics network for defence, infrastructure and remote operations,” adds Marianne Hyltoft, managing partner, PSV Hafnium.
The competitive landscape
Bulgaria’s Dronamics has raised around $92.5 million with a slower, longer-range 350-kilogram aircraft. San Francisco’s Elroy Air holds active contracts with the US Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force. The UK’s Malloy Aeronautics was acquired outright by BAE Systems in 2024.
Acodyne is the only one of the four betting that speed is the deciding factor. It is also the only one with no aircraft yet flown. EU initiatives such as U-space are paving the way for unmanned aircraft to operate in regulated corridors across rural and inter-city routes, while NATO’s push for European defence-industrial autonomy is driving public and private demand for unmanned platforms.
What the funding buys
This is Acodyne’s first institutional funding round. The fresh funds support prototype development and flight testing in real mission environments. Initial flight tests of the E100 are planned before the end of 2026.
Field trials follow in Greenland in spring 2027, alongside an offshore route between a Danish port and a wind-farm service station, according to the company. Pless expects headcount to double within a year as the company hires aerospace engineers.
“This round gives us the runway to take Acodyne from validated concept to flight-tested platform, and to do it alongside investors who understand both the operational reality of defence and offshore logistics and the technical demands of building heavy-lift unmanned aircraft. The cross-border setup with Gungnir, PSV Hafnium, and EIFO is a strong signal that European capital is willing to back the hardware bets needed for true logistics resilience,” concludes Pless.
