Drone Maker Tekever Is Now Worth €5.5 Billion

Set Trending Topics as a preferred source on Google.

Europe’s defense boom has a new star, and for once it isn’t German. Portuguese-British drone start-up Tekever has just raised about €500 million ($580 million) in a Series D round at a valuation of about €5.5 billion ($6.4 billion), Tech.eu reports. And that is only the “first close,” so more money could still follow.

Who Is Investing

The round is led by Scottish investment firm Baillie Gifford and UC Investments, which manages the University of California’s endowment and pension assets. According to Quartz, it is the university’s first direct investment in Europe. Other backers include:

• New investor: Merlyn Advisors, led by former British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.
• Existing investors: Crescent Cove, Ventura Capital and Iberis Capital.

Wallace also supplied the political rationale: “Europe’s security will increasingly depend on its ability to build technology companies that can innovate at speed, scale industrially and deliver capabilities,” he said, according to Resilience Media.

Nearly Five Times More Valuable in 16 Months

The pace is remarkable. In May 2025, Tekever was valued at $1.32 billion, which made it a unicorn. Its value has nearly quintupled since then. In total, the company run by founder and chief executive Ricardo Mendes has now raised more than €1 billion in outside capital.

Tekever builds A.I.-powered autonomous surveillance drones for military use and for civilian missions such as border security and maritime patrol. Its main models:

• AR3 and AR3 EVO: Smaller, modular drones that are in use in Ukraine, among other places.
• AR5: The larger system can fly for about 20 hours straight and carry up to 50 kilograms of payload.

Its biggest contract comes from Britain: the Ministry of Defence selected Tekever for Corvus, a surveillance program for the British Army based on the AR5 and worth up to £400 million over ten years. Tekever also recently acquired the Scottish heavy-lift drone start-up Flowcopter.

Where the Money Will Go

Tekever plans to use the new capital to expand internationally, scale up production and invest more in research and development. More acquisitions are on the agenda, too: Mendes wants to look specifically for deals in the defense sector. “This is a powerful endorsement of our technology, our team and our long-term vision,” Mendes said.

Europe’s Drone Elite Is Growing

Tekever joins a group of European defense tech companies raising capital at a record pace. Munich-based A.I. defense company Helsing is expected to soon be worth about €15 billion, according to reports, German drone maker Quantum Systems recently raised $1.2 billion, and Stark Defence has joined the top tier with a possible valuation of €2.5 billion. Helsing and Stark have also won German military orders worth a combined €540 million.

The driver is the same everywhere: the war in Ukraine has shown how decisive cheap, autonomous drones are on the battlefield, and European governments are sharply increasing their defense budgets. Tekever has the advantage that its systems are already proven in the field and that Britain is on board as a major long-term customer.