The war in Ukraine brought drones to the forefront of modern warfare, surged the demand for counter drone systems.
However, legacy solutions for counter drones such as ground defense systems and cyber warfare often come with a large price tag. For German startup Alpine Eagle, these solutions are lacking. Currently, if a $500 first-person view (FPV) drone has the ability to destroy millions of dollars of tanks, a cost-effective answer is needed.
“We use cheap, mass-producible systems to establish symmetry against the numerical benefits of cheap strike drones,” Dutch entrepreneur Jan-Hendrik Boelens told TechCrunch. Munich-based Alpine Eagle, which he co-founded in 2023, is developing Sentinel, a software and hardware combination that focuses on cost-effectiveness.
Unlike ground-based competitive solutions such as Hover's counter-drone turret, Sentinel is in the air and has modular sensors that are not hindered by terrain or other obstacles, avoiding being stationary targets.
Massaships, refined but not intended as consumables, carry Kamikaze interceptors that help you do more than detect or interfere with threats. You can capture objects on the net or destroy hostile drones completely.
Although potential applications exist in law enforcement and other sectors, current geopolitical climates are primarily driving demand for this technology in the military. The Munich-based startup, along with other government agencies, has launched the German Army and secured its clients, achieving seven-figure revenues in its first 12 months of operation.
This allowed the 10.25 million euro Series A round (approximately $10.96 million) to be closed, led by UK deep tech VC company IQ Capital. The new funding will bring 40 staff as startups expand their current team of machine learning practitioners and aviation engineers, recruiting new products through products, engineering, business development and sales.
The fact that the round is led by a UK VC company is no coincidence. Because startups have the UK as a key market for its expansion. That's also because its markets are beyond the battlefield and recent events highlight the need to protect military bases and broader infrastructure.
Still, there is no doubt that Alpine Eagle is part of the rise of European defense technology, and is part of the VC's interest, especially in countries that feel most threatened.
In addition to the return of Catalyst and HCVC in general for investors, its cap table now includes funds from Estonia, Germany and Poland. “We were looking for a consortium of European investors that shared both the urgency of the building. [a] It is in the European defence technology ecosystem and it is in the major countries,” Bellens said.
Despite this urgency, Belens did not want to rush the Sentinel to enter Ukraine. “Our approach was to make sure we first provide a mature system so that we don't waste their time on things that aren't working yet. We've seen too many startups doing that, but we felt that if the system is actually doing what it was supposed to do, we should go there.”
After verifying the system with the German army, he is now speaking with various brigades that will help him test the system in Ukraine and help identify frontline use cases. One is a fiber optic drone. Using cables instead of radio frequencies makes detection or jaming difficult.
Drones that are immune to RF interference can also be a challenge for Epilus. This was co-founded by Joe Lonsdale, who had just raised a $250 million Series D, and its flagship product, Leonidas, has just turned high-power microwaves into beams.
In contrast, Alpine Eagle's aerial systems can integrate a variety of sensors, including radar panels, to detect low-flight drones that frequently avoid ground-based systems.
However, jamming goes in both directions. This is one aspect of Alpine Eagle using AI, and data collection is used to readjust the algorithms so that data processing is mounted on the hardware itself for navigation purposes and “have more adaptive tactics based on what they have actually realised.”
One important tactical aspect of the Sentinel is the herd. This is also the selling point for German defense technology company Helsing's latest drone model. Applying it to counter the drone strategy follows the same logic of cost and victim limitations.
“We realised that there is a problem in all Western countries that there are not enough soldiers, so we're going to try and build a system that can use high automation levels to operate many drones by a single operator and actually promote them to mission managers rather than pilots,” Borrence said.