DOD Solution raises $2.1M pre-seed for GPS-free drone autonomy

DOD Solution, the Estonian-Ukrainian defence tech startup behind the AURA onboard autonomy platform, has raised a $2.1 million (about €1.8 million) pre-seed from nine investors including Canadian drone manufacturer Draganfly, to scale AI that keeps drones flying when GPS and radio links die.

European defence tech has spent two years talking about sovereignty while the hardest proof points were being generated far from any demo day. The good news is the capital is starting to find them. Below, I lay out the round, the platform, and why a pre-seed with no lead investor might be one of the more telling defence deals of the month.

Nine backers, no lead

Announced on 28 September 2026, the round brings together Angel One Fund, Better Angle, Defence Builder Fund, Network VC, Newfund, UAID Fund, WildField Ventures and 4°C-Next Holding AG, alongside business angels from Ukraine, the EU, the US and Canada. No single investor led. Draganfly, the publicly listed Canadian drone maker, joined as a strategic investor – a manufacturer buying proximity to the autonomy layer rather than building its own from scratch.

The company says the money goes to four places: mass production of its next-generation AURA SBC onboard computer, advancing the AI in its AURA OS software stack, accelerating integrations with unmanned platform manufacturers in Ukraine and abroad, and working towards US NDAA compliance – the regulatory doorway to American defence procurement.

Founded in 2023 and built between Estonia and Ukraine, DOD Solution is exactly the kind of dual-base structure we keep seeing in Ukrainian defence tech: an EU corporate home, engineering and deployment where the technology is actually used.

A computer and an operating system for drones that fly blind

AURA is two products that only make sense together. AURA SBC is a single-board computer that rides on the drone; AURA OS is the autonomy software running on it. Together they give an unmanned system visual navigation when GPS is jammed, target recognition and tracking without an operator link, and terminal guidance through the last mile where electronic warfare is thickest. The platform works across FPV drones, interceptors and fixed-wing aircraft, and the company says it is already deployed in combat operations in Ukraine.

“Autonomy should work across different unmanned systems and operating environments, rather than remaining a separate feature tied to a single platform,” co-founder and CEO Roman Hapachylo said in the announcement.

That platform-agnostic bet is visible in the partner list too: the company points to work with Lantronix, Axelera AI and Defsecintel Solutions – chips, edge AI and integration, not a single airframe.

A $34.85bn market compounding at 25.7%

The market this round sells into is not small and not slow. The global military drones market stands at $34.85 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $109.22 billion by 2031, a 25.7% CAGR (MarketsandMarkets, 2026). Autonomy under jamming is the segment inside that figure growing on necessity rather than on budget cycles: every month of electronic warfare makes GPS-dependent systems less useful.

For scale, look at the other end of the same vertical in our records: Portugal’s Tekever raised a $580 million Series D at a $6.4 billion valuation in September 2026. A $2.1 million pre-seed and a half-billion growth round in the same month, in the same category, is what a functioning European pipeline is supposed to look like. We have not been able to say that often.

Combat deployment is the new track record

So what does a small round with eight funds and no lead actually signal? At most pre-seeds, a cap table like that would raise an eyebrow. In defence tech it reads differently – less a syndicate, more a coalition: specialist angel vehicles like UAID Fund and Defence Builder Fund writing conviction cheques where generalist institutions still hesitate at this stage.

The second signal is what now counts as traction. This team is not pitching simulations; it is shipping into live operations and letting the deployment data speak. Ukrainian-founded companies are arriving at European cap tables with evidence most defence primes would envy, and the EU corporate wrapper makes them investable for funds that could not touch a purely Ukrainian entity. The NDAA line in the use of funds tells you where the ambition points next: the US procurement market, reached from an Estonian base.

What to watch from here is the integration count – how many airframe manufacturers put AURA onboard – and whether one of the strategic partners converts proximity into an equity position at seed. The wider picture is in our fundraising data: European defence rounds keep arriving weekly now, at every stage.

The proof is already flying. Let’s make sure the capital keeps up.