A low-cost FPV drone can create a defence problem worth many times its own price.
That imbalance has become one of the defining challenges in modern counter-drone defense. Drones are getting cheaper, more autonomous and easier to deploy at scale, while many interception systems still rely on expensive ammunition or infrastructure. Ground A was founded in Germany in January 2026 around a different equation: if the threat can be launched repeatedly at low cost, the response has to become equally repeatable.
Co-founders Tobias Brune, Daniel Hariri and Roland Ralph Spiegelhalder moved quickly. Within roughly seven months, Ground A took its first system from prototype into testing and validation, while the team grew from five employees in March to 25 by September. The company is now trying to turn that development speed into an operational counter-UAS system that can protect both military assets and critical infrastructure.
Investors are backing the effort with €9.1 million in pre-seed funding.
Vsquared Ventures led the round, with European drone manufacturer Quantum Systems joining as a corporate investor alongside GRIF, Robin Capital, ABACON, Leblon Capital and OVNI Capital. Quantum Systems’ participation gives the round an unusual strategic layer: one of Europe’s established drone companies is investing in technology designed to detect and defeat the same class of increasingly capable unmanned systems. Ground A plans to use the capital for additional prototypes, first market-ready units, team expansion and preparations for larger-scale manufacturing, with another financing round planned for 2027.
At the centre of the company is the GA 1000, a portable laser-based drone defense system combining radar, multi-sensor fusion, computer vision, proprietary AI and a high-energy laser.
The process is designed as a complete chain. Sensors detect an approaching drone, software classifies and tracks it, and the system maintains the target while a human operator retains the final engagement decision. Ground A says the GA 1000 can detect threats from several kilometres away and neutralise them within seconds once engaged.
The hardware tells another part of the story.
The full system fits on a Euro pallet, while its energy modules can be moved by four people and operated without permanent grid infrastructure. Ground A says electricity is the only consumable during an engagement, bringing the claimed cost per engagement below €0.10.
That figure is where the product becomes more than another high-energy laser counter-drone system.
Modern air defense increasingly faces a cost-per-intercept problem. NATO militaries and defense suppliers are actively pursuing lower-cost counter-UAS technologies because repeatedly using expensive interceptors against comparatively inexpensive drones is difficult to sustain. Recent European systems are likewise combining radar, sensor fusion, AI-enabled command-and-control and laser effectors around the same economic pressure.
Ground A is also aiming beyond battlefields. The company positions the GA 1000 for airports, power plants, ports, data centres, borders and major public events, placing it inside the growing market for critical infrastructure drone protection.
The hard part begins now.
Ground A has not yet commercially scaled the GA 1000. Its next challenge is proving that the system can preserve its claimed speed, portability and low engagement economics through repeated field operation and industrial production.
That makes the €9.1 million round more than financing for another defense prototype.
It is capital behind a simple but increasingly important proposition:
if drones are becoming cheap enough to launch at scale, counter-drone systems have to become cheap enough to defend at scale.
That is the equation Ground A now has to prove.