With rising climate risks threatening critical infrastructure and borders, traditional surveillance methods, such as helicopters, are costly, inefficient, and constrained by the need for pilots and support teams.
Rift, a French deep-tech startup, offers a sovereign, on-demand aerial intelligence network powered by autonomous, long-endurance drones and self-deploying stations running proprietary RiftOS software. Their “Surveillance-as-a-Service” model significantly lowers costs (up to 10 times cheaper than helicopters) while ensuring all data remains within European borders to protect national security.
Today, Rift secured €4.6 million in new funding, €3 million in equity from AlleyCorp (USA) and OVNI Capital (France).
A new way to monitor borders and critical sites
Rift was founded in 2023 by Daniel Nef and Dorian Millière, with Nef bringing over a decade of product management and tech leadership experience, including at OpenClassrooms.
The co-founders’ mission is to create a resilient, fully autonomous European aerial intelligence infrastructure dedicated to safeguarding territories, critical infrastructure, and populations. Their vision extends beyond surveillance to providing timely, reliable real-time decision support for security forces and infrastructure operators, filling the gap between satellite data and ground personnel with fast, cost-effective drone reconnaissance.
Rift’s technology integrates internally designed long-endurance VTOL drones, autonomous “shipping-container-sized” deployment stations, and the RiftOS mission-control software platform. This architecture allows whole remote operation with no pilots required in the field, offering continuous 24/7 coverage in rotation.
Unlike Alta Ares and Harmattan AI, Rift offers a seamless, scalable solution tailored for sensitive zones such as borders, coastlines, energy infrastructure, and industrial sites.
What’s next?
Rift plans to use the new funding to scale production of autonomous drone stations using innovative manufacturing processes, aiming for large-scale, low-cost deployment. They aim to achieve full mission-cycle automation by 2027, including planning, execution, anomaly detection, and reporting without human intervention.
The startup also intends to double its R&D, data science, certification, and manufacturing workforce by the end of 2026.
