The war in Ukraine has brought drones to the forefront of modern warfare, creating a surge in demand for counter-drone systems. However, legacy solutions to counter drones, such as ground-based defense systems and cyber warfare, often come with a hefty price tag. For German startup Alpine Eagle, these solutions fall short: When now-ubiquitous $500 first-person-view (FPV) drones have the capacity to destroy multi-million-dollar tanks, cost-effective answers are needed.
“We use inexpensive, mass-producible systems to establish a symmetry against the numerical advantage of cheap strike drones,” Dutch entrepreneur Jan-Hendrik Boelens told TechCrunch. Munich-based Alpine Eagle, which he co-founded in 2023, develops Sentinel, a mix of software and hardware focused on cost-efficiency.
Unlike ground-based competing solutions, such as Hover’s counter-drone turret, Sentinel is airborne, with modular sensors that aren’t hindered by terrain and other obstacles, while avoiding becoming a stationary target.
Its mothership, which is sophisticated but not meant to be expendable, carries kamikaze interceptors that also help it do more than detecting threats or jamming them: They can either capture objects with nets or destroy hostile drones altogether.
While potential applications exist in law enforcement and other sectors, the current geopolitical climate has driven demand for this technology, primarily in the military. The Munich-based startup secured the German army as its launch customer, in addition to other government agencies, and said it achieved seven-digit revenue in the first 12 months of operation.
This helped it close a €10.25 million (around $10.96 million) seed round led by British deep tech VC firm IQ Capital. The new funding will help the startup expand its current team of machine learning practitioners and aeronautical engineers, with new hires across product, engineering, business development, and sales bringing its headcount to 40.
