Airdog founders have returned with a drone designed for modern warfare.
The war in Ukraine showed that warfare is changing every day. It’s also clear that the tech used to make war today is costly: While larger countries can afford legions of tanks, helicopters, and precision-strike systems, smaller nations find themselves scrambling for cheaper ways to defend themselves.
Origin, a new defense tech startup out of Latvia, specializes in making reusable, autonomous drones that can deliver munitions far more cheaply than similar solutions. The company has already signed commercial agreements with NATO nations, but these are not named for security purposes. Origin was founded in 2022 by Agris Kpurs and Ilya NEVDAH after they left Airdog. Airdog made an autonomous drone famous for filming extreme sports. Eventually, Airdog was acquired by U.S. smart home solutions developer Alarm.com.
“Airdog was a consumer drone. Kipurs, the CEO of TechCrunch, said that we were the first to launch a self-flying system in 2015. Origin was founded in March 2022 in response to the invasion in Ukraine. We knew we needed to return to what we are best at, and this time with military applications. We knew the team’s skill set was rare, since we had been developing autonomous systems for over 10 years. It has a camera and is capable of autonomous flying. It is also portable, which makes it ideal for wars such as the one in Ukraine.
Many of us have seen images of drones with ‘first person view’ (FPV), which carry grenades, and smash into tanks in order to destroy them. These drones need to be replaced.
Instead of blowing itself up, the BEAK delivers munitions to the target while remaining intact, meaning it can be reused — the cost savings can therefore be significant.
“The BEAK is a precision guided weapons system,” Kipurs explained. It’s not a robot. Imagine it as a flying Javelin. This is more like a traditional military drone, only it’s small. The cost per strike will be approximately 20 times lower than the alternatives.” This is more like a traditional military drone, only it’s small, with the cost per strike approximately 20 times lower than the alternatives.”
Kipurs believes the BEAK will appeal to smaller countries: “Latvia and every small democracy across the world desperately needs the tech community to get behind the mission. The small countries realize they cannot afford to wage war the old-fashioned manner. The company has also raised EUR1.6 million in EU grants and support from the Latvian Ministry of Defence, taking its total funding to EUR4 million.
Andris K. Berzins, a partner at Change Ventures, added in a statement: “Having known Agris and Ilya for a decade through their successful launch of the world’s leading action sports drone Airdog, I knew this team is unlike the many that have started learning how to build a drone startup only since the Ukraine invasion two years ago. They were able to combine their expertise with a vision of reshaping the precision weapons market and the remarkable traction they have achieved in the last 18 months. This made investing easy.
