Out of curiosity, what do you think of when you think of New Zealand? Beaches? Skiing? Kiwis? Jacinda Ardern?
Well, now it’s time to add drones to that list.
This morning, NZ-founded SYOS Aerospace announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’ve closed a “convertible note round co-led by NZVC and Outset Ventures, with Altered Capital and undisclosed strategic funds.”
- NZVC is a fund that “backs founders from New Zealand and Australia who build global companies from day one.”
- Outset, per the company, is “New Zealand’s most active deep tech investor.”
Terms of the round were not disclosed, but the capital comes on the heels of a £30M UK Ministry of Defence drone order for Ukraine secured by SYOS. The company says it also has a “multi-domain New Zealand Defence Force contract.”
- Worth noting: This is the company’s first raise; So far, they’ve used revenue alone. Flex.
“We’re going to utilize this capital injection to go harder, go faster, and go quicker,” CEO and founder Sam Vye told Tectonic. “That’s across expanding R&D capacity, expanding our production capacity, and pushing our global footprint further.”
“We saw Sam’s ability to build a company from New Zealand that can go global,” Mark Pavlyukovskyy, GP at NZVC, told Tectonic. “SYOS’ ability to leverage [New Zealand’s ecosystem] and then build a company that can service global and national clients…[is] pretty impressive.”
Love a little representation from down under.
Rise of the Kiwis: Now, just because you haven’t heard all that much about SYOS just yet doesn’t mean they haven’t been making some serious moves.
- The company was founded by Vye in New Zealand back in 2021 because he was “fed up with companies charging too much for too little,” he told Tectonic.
- SYOS actually started out on the commercial side of things—they kicked things off with unmanned helicopters designed for heavy lift in things like agriculture, forestry and logistics.
But, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, per Vye, they branched hard into defense. “We realized that what we’re doing can be really applied and support Ukraine…so we [went] into defense,” he said. “We’re dual-use now, and we expanded…into all domains.”
- They scored their first contract with the UK MoD (worth £1.25M) for an autonomous maritime theatre-lift capability in November 2023.
Crossover: And when Vye says all domains, he really means it. Here’s what they’re building (and it’s quite the list, so lock in).
Air:
- SA200: A heavy-lift autonomous helicopter with a 200 kg payload and up to 300 km range. It’s meant for cargo, ISR, and EW.
- SA2: A sub-7 kg tactical ISR drone with EO/IR, GNSS-denied navigation, and swarm capability. Sounds like someone practiced in Ukraine.
- SA7: A small logistics drone with a 7 kg payload and ~35-minute endurance.
cUAS:
- SA1: A high-speed drone interceptor that can go about 300+ km/h, with radar-assisted acquisition and autonomous terminal guidance. Snazzy.
Maritime:
- SM300: A multi-role tactical USV with a 300 kg payload and a 700 nm range. It’s good for ISR, strike, C-UAS, and logistics, and is deployed in Ukraine.
- SM400: A larger (7.2 m) tactical USV with a 500 kg payload and a 950 nm range. It’s also good for ISR, EW, payload delivery, and fleet-shadowing.
- They’re also working on two larger USVs—the SM600 and SM1000—for longer endurance, larger payloads, and longer range.
- They’ve also got a small, tethered UUV (think subsurface ground vehicle) called SU10 with a 500 m operating depth and a 10 kg payload. It’s designed for everything from asset inspection to mine countermeasures.
Ground:
- SG400: A 6×6 UGV with a 400 kg payload and ~230 km range. Designed for logistics and ISR in contested environments.
All of this runs on SYOS’ autonomy and C2 stack (for everything from navigation, to vehicle coordination, to mission execution across domains). Vye said it includes everything from “nav systems to various computer vision systems to advanced algorithms [that they apply] onto vehicles.”
At the front: Both Vye and Pavlyukovskyy see the company’s deployment in Ukraine (through that UK contract) as pretty critical to SYOS’ success.
- Per the company, the SM300 USVs are not only deployed but “combat-proven” in Ukraine.
“We place a lot of emphasis around having a real tight feedback loop based on frontline and user feedback, so that we can make sure that our systems continually stay relevant,” Vye said. “I think if any company doesn’t do that, then they ultimately risk obsolescence of their systems.”
Big ups: From here, the plan—per usual—is to scale and expand R&D.
“What this funding is allowing us to do is actually increase the depth of…the engineering capacity and R&D, so we are able to do more R and D work streams in parallel,” Vye said. “That allows us to basically de-risk what we’re doing as well as go faster.”
Mr. Worldwide: Plus, there’s gonna be some good good international expansion.
- They’re currently “pretty tied in with the Five Eyes nations as well as Europe,” per Vye, but they’re pushing particularly hard into Australia and Canada. They’ve also already (obviously) got a presence in New Zealand.
- They’re also setting up “air vehicle engineering and production sites in the UK,” he added. Worth noting: SYOS already has a facility in Fareham.
- Plus, while he couldn’t get into specifics, Vye said they have “plans in action for the US right now.” Sounds exciting.
“We need as many systems as possible for as low a cost as possible,” he added. “Those are the metrics that we go after. If an operator has 1000 systems instead of 10 systems, then, as long as [they’re] achieving minimum capability, then you can achieve far more with an order of magnitude more systems in play.”
