Drone Maker Tekever Is Now Worth €5.5 Billion

Europe has a new defense darling, and this one speaks with a Portuguese-British accent. Tekever has raised about €500 million in a Series D round, putting the drone start-up at roughly €5.5 billion. Tech.eu reported the deal, and the company says this is only the first close, so the total could still rise.

The money came from some serious names. Baillie Gifford and UC Investments led the round, with Merlyn Advisors joining as a new backer. Existing investors Crescent Cove, Ventura Capital and Iberis Capital also took part. UC Investments, which manages the University of California’s endowment and pension assets, was making its first direct investment in Europe, according to Quartz.

Tekever’s valuation has moved at a ridiculous clip. In May 2025 it was worth $1.32 billion, which already made it a unicorn. Sixteen months later, it is sitting at about €5.5 billion. The company, led by founder and chief executive Ricardo Mendes, has now taken in more than €1 billion in outside capital.

The business itself is built around A.I.-powered autonomous surveillance drones for military use, plus civilian work like border security and maritime patrol. Its AR3 and AR3 EVO systems are smaller, modular drones and are already in use in Ukraine, among other places. The larger AR5 can fly for about 20 hours and carry up to 50 kilograms of payload. Britain is the anchor customer here: the Ministry of Defence picked Tekever for Corvus, a British Army surveillance program based on the AR5 and worth up to £400 million over ten years.

Tekever recently bought the Scottish heavy-lift drone start-up Flowcopter, and Mendes says more acquisitions are on the table, especially in defense. The new capital will go into international expansion, higher production and more research and development. That all fits the mood across European defense tech, where cheap autonomous drones and bigger military budgets are turning once-small start-ups into very expensive companies, very fast.