Key takeaways
- Autonomous cargo aircraft maker Acoyne raised €2.5m in pre-seed funding
- Back by Gungnir Capital, PSV Hafnium, SAP9 Group and Green UP IV Invest
- Participation also from Denmark's Export and Investment Fund (EIFO)
Copenhagen-based aerospace company Acodyne has raised €2.5 million in pre-seed funding to develop unmanned cargo aircraft for defence, offshore and remote logistics, the company announced in June.
The investment round was jointly led by Swedish defence venture capital firm Gungnir Capital and Danish investment firm PSV Hafnium, with Denmark’s Export and Investment Fund (EIFO), SAP9 Group and GreenUP IV Invest also participating.
Acodyne was founded in 2023 and is developing autonomous electric vertical take-off aircraft (eVOTL) capable of carrying payloads ranging from 100 kilograms to 500 kilograms at speeds of up to 450 km/h.
The funding will take Acodyne from a concept toward a pre-production prototype and flight testing, with initial tests of its E100 aircraft planned before the end of 2026, and team expansion planned.
The company is initially targeting defence logistics, where it sees applications in resupply missions that currently rely on crewed helicopters, as well as offshore and other remote operations. Acodyne’s aircraft are designed to operate without onboard crew, allowing logistics missions to be conducted without putting aircrew into the operating environment.
Gungnir Capital said “Acodyne is a fundamentally new take on unmanned military logistics: jet-class speed, helicopter-class payload, full ground-to-air autonomy, all-electric.
“It collapses one of the most expensive line items in modern operations, manned helicopter logistics, into a platform that needs no crew in the threat envelope. NATO needs resilient, scalable resupply that works.”
Acodyne co-founder and CCO, Jasmina Pless, added that the pan-European investor base is “a strong signal that European capital is willing to back the hardware bets needed for true logistics resilience.”
