Everyone really is making that great, grand leap across the pond.
This morning, Croatian drone giant Orqa FPV announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it’s spinning out an independent US entity called Orqa US, focused on building end-to-end UAV systems for Drone Dominance.
The US company is teaming up with defense contractor By Light and will produce drones (derived from OG Orqa designs) out of the company’s 180,000-square-foot production facility in Port Orange, FL.
Orqa US CEO Charles Phillips told Tectonic that the US company plans to submit for Drone Dominance Phase II and will amp up production capacity so it can churn out the 8,000 units required for the program by the end of the year.
“We’re setting up [the company] primarily to expand the organic industrial base here in the US. We do believe that there is room and a need for additional drone technology here in the US that’s homegrown,” he said. “The goal with this company is to take Orqa’s technology, which is best in class, and to pair it up with By Light’s manufacturing, which is likewise best in class, and to allow for that to be housed in a US entity.”
It’s a bird: Orqa ain’t no newcomer on the drone scene. The company (as in, the parent company) was founded way, way back in the before times of 2018 and has made a name for itself building FPVs (and their components) that have been a hit on the battlefield in Ukraine.
(Pun kind of intended.)
The company makes a few different FPVs:
- The MRM1-5 training drone, the NDAA-compliant and EW-resilient MRM2-10, and the more commercially marketed Dream X.
- They also make all the kit that makes those drones go zoom in-house: goggles, flight controllers, motors, printed circuit boards (PCBs), cameras, radios, and all the mechanical drone parts. Big emphasis on the no Chinese parts thing here.
And they’re not slouching when it comes to churning these out—late last year, the company said it had the capacity to produce 280,000 drones a year.
Cash money: Plus, investors and militaries alike seem to like ‘em.
- Back in March, the company raised a $14.7M Series A led by Expeditions Ventures, bringing total funding to over $23M.
- Also in March, they signed a teaming agreement with Red River Army Depot in the US to scale up drone component production.
- They’ve also reportedly got a €10M contract for FPVs with the Croatian military and have signed a deal with Qatar’s Barzan Holdings for localized production of FPVs.
Whale watching: Orqa (again, parent company) is unique in that it not only builds its own drones, but also supplies all the component bits—controllers, goggles, cameras, radios, and the like—to other companies.
- The company teamed up with Firestorm last year to help develop the Squall FPV (basically, Orqa’s FPV produced with Firestorm’s additive manufacturing setup). Orqa’s components were part of Firestorm’s drone submission for Drone Dominance Gauntlet I.
- They also teamed up with Ukrainian drone giant General Cherry back in April to bring the company’s interceptors to Europe and NATO.
- The company—helmed by Srdjan Kovacevic—maintains a kind of “open systems architecture” approach. They share their tech and know-how through a Global Manufacturing Partnership program to (basically) get more drones out there.
Phillips said that the new US entity (Orqa US) will basically act as another of these partners in the ecosystem—just with much closer ties. Not just best friends, but like best best friends forever (and ever).
- The company hasn’t fully worked out how IP sharing will work yet, Phillips said, but they will “leverage Orqa’s current IP heavily.”
- The company currently has seven employees and is headquartered in Oakland, CA.
- The US set-up was fully funded by the “investors in the deal,” Phillips said. (That means Orqa and By Light.) Phillips said they have not yet decided whether they will go out to raise more money.
- The company has an independent board, with reps from Orqa and By Light, plus an independent member.
And for all y’all using Orqa parts, fret not—the existing subsidiary of the Croatian parent company (Orqa Inc.) will keep on providing components to US companies (like with Firestorm).
“What Orqa is doing, really, is supporting the entire US ecosystem for drones and unmanned systems,” Phillips said.