Vienna's DropForce raises six-figure angel round to 3D-print drones on-site
What's the deal? Vienna-based DropForceDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → Systems has raised a six-figure angel round from BarnVentures and LNX GmbH to build FPV drones where they are needed rather than in a central factory. BarnVentures, the firm behind founders Filip Zganjer and Florian Bauer, took a 20% stake. Until now, the founders had financed development themselves.
Who's behind it? Aviation engineers Jakub Hamdard (chief executive officer) and Christian Mühl (chief technology officer) founded the company in early 2026. Hamdard previously worked on satellite propulsion at space startup ENPULSION and at Diamond AircraftDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →; Mühl came from drone maker SchiebelDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Airborne TechnologiesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Diamond Aircraft.
Why now? The pair originally planned a drone fleet for light shows, finding Chinese show drones too expensive and unreliable. After four prototypes, they realised the bottleneck was assembly — especially soldering — not 3D printing. So they redesigned the drone around the build process.
The product: The STURM 01 is a modular FPV quadcopter assembled without soldering — electronics plug in, mechanics screw together, and structural parts come off a 3D printer. Assembly takes 10 to 15 minutes. The second piece, the Tactical Case, is a transport case holding a 3D printer, power supply, and tools that one person can operate.
What's the endgame? Instead of replacing lost or damaged drones through orders and supply chains, DropForceDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → wants users to stock kits and produce spares on site. One printer running continuously should supply parts for about 70 drones a day. "Drones break or are lost in operation. They are still replaced like aircraft: through ordering, delivery time, and procurement," the company said (translated from German).
How it makes money: The startup plans to sell finished drones and production cells, but mainly to earn from ongoing supply of kits, components, and mission modules. The dual-use platform targets civil uses such as disaster response, search and rescue, and critical infrastructure protection, plus institutional buyers including armed forces.
The signal: Distributed, on-site manufacturing reframes drones as a consumable rather than a durable asset — a positioning increasingly relevant to defence and emergency response. By developing its own flight controller and firmware atop open-source ArduPilot and Betaflight, DropForce is betting Europe wants home-grown alternatives to Chinese hardware.
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Image credit: Generated with Gemini
