Airdog's founders are back with a precision-strike drone meant for modern warfare
The war in Ukraine has shown that warfare changes by the day.
The war in Ukraine has shown that warfare changes by the 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 already has commercial agreements with two NATO countries, though these remain unnamed for security reasons.
Founded in 2022 by Agris Kipurs and Ilya Nevdah, Origin emerged after the pair exited Airdog, which made an autonomous drone that is famously used for recording extreme sports. Eventually, Airdog was acquired by U.S. smart home solutions developer Alarm.com.
“Airdog was a consumer drone. We were the first in the world to launch an autonomously flying system in 2015,” Kipurs (CEO) told TechCrunch. “We founded Origin in March of 2022, obviously in response to the invasion of Ukraine. We realized that we had to go back to doing what we do best, this time for military applications. We knew that the skill set that we have as a team is rare, as we’d been building autonomous systems for 10+ years.”
The startup’s flagship product, BEAK, is an ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) drone with precision guidance technology. It packs a camera, is capable of autonomous flight, and can withstand intense radio jamming. It’s also man-portable, making it well suited to wars like the one in Ukraine.
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At Origin we develop highly advanced autonomous systems to enhance the capabilities of Europe and our NATO allies. We empower cost-efficient hardware with state-of-the-art software to deter and defend.
We invest private capital in developing the systems we bring to the defense market, focusing on cost-efficient solutions and fast iteration cycles. This approach allows the governments we work with to save money while providing a sufficient response to the ever-evolving challenges of today's battlefield.