Germany's Drone Boom: Three Giants, Ten Challengers, One Customer

Helsing, Quantum Systems and STARK hold most of the venture money. Ten smaller companies build interceptors, lasers, sensors and support aircraft around them, and the Bundeswehr has so far ordered very little from them.

Germany's drone industry is organising itself around a single buyer. On 5 November, STARK said it had opened a site in Lithuania, where the Bundeswehr's Panzerbrigade 45 is stationed and due to receive the Berlin company's Virtus loitering munition. STARK was founded in 2024.

Three companies, Helsing, Quantum Systems and STARK, hold most of the sector's venture money. Ten smaller ones are building the cheaper layer of drone defence and support around them: TYTAN Technologies, Alpine Eagle, AVILUS, ODONATA, AVRAX Systems and SE3 Labs around Munich, Ground A in Berlin and Düsseldorf, INLEAP Photonics in Hanover, Skylance near Cologne and VEXARA in Frankfurt. How much of that becomes a domestic military market is the Bundeswehr's decision.