Origin Robotics brings a decade of drone experience from action sports to precision weapons systems.
It has become clear that the war in Ukraine heralds a sea change in how military technologies, tactics and strategy will be used in the future, thanks to drone technology. While for many this may be a new fad to latch on to for a business opportunity, the Origin Robotics team has been building sophisticated unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) for more than a decade. This is why Change Ventures led the recent round of financing for the company.
When AirDog, as their auto-follow action sports drone was called, was launched, it was the first UAV that could automatically follow a skier, surfer, biker or other outdoor enthusiast and provide them with third person viewer camera footage of their sporting activities. AirDog sold over 3000 units of this product which required a sophisticated combination of mechanical engineering to provide a back-pack size portable form factor, along with complex software for obstacle detection and avoidance, autonomous navigation and operations.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the co-founders Agris Ķipurs and Ilya Nevdahs asked themselves whether their experience could be leveraged for the new requirement of the defence of European nations against imperial aggression. It was obvious that UAVs would play a key part in that defence need and they established Origin Robotics to work towards durable solutions for modern warfare. Since then they have spent significant time working with Ukrainian military units to understand the problems and needs of the battlefield. During this period First Person View (FPV) and loitering munition drones have become a mainstay of the battlefield, produced and used in the tens of thousands. However, the drawbacks of these technologies are also becoming clear. As expendable one-time use weapons, they inherently need to be cheap. This cost constraint puts severe limitations on the quality of components such as the radio and camera, which means that their success rate to complete missions is low — many are taken down by air defences, electronic warfare or other failures. They also require a large number of trained operators to guide them to their targets. The alternative is the West's traditional missile system solutions for precision strikes are large, expensive, and require significant launch systems capabilities and logistics.
Origin Robotics response to these shortcomings is their first product, BEAK, a drone-launched precision weapons system. The carrier can identify and track targets from a much greater height and distance using a sophisticated gimbal-based camera system and maintain uninterrupted communications using a powerful radio communications package. Precision bombs can then be dropped very accurately from a much higher height than today's bomb-dropping drones, ensuring longevity of the carrier drone platform to execute many missions. As a package, this delivers a much lower cost per successful mission than the alternatives. As Agris puts it, “It's not a drone. It's a flying Javelin.”
BEAK is already battlefield tested and the company has commercial agreements with two NATO nations. The startup has also secured €1.6M in EU grants and support from the Latvian Ministry of Defence. Change Ventures led €2.4M in equity funding to support the company's ramping up of production and operations to ensure swift growth, delivery of their BEAK system orders and R&D developments for their next product lines. We are delighted that Silicon Roundabout Ventures joined us on this journey.
Andris K. Berzins
Partner, Change Ventures
