US startup founded by former teenage drone racers just won one of the Pentagon's biggest small-drone deals Neros has shipped tens of thousands of UAVs to Ukraine and inked a $500M contract

Date:
Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:05:00 +0000

Description:
Two drone-racers who were told they couldn't "waltz into the Pentagon" and sell weapons just won a $500 million US Army contract to do exactly that.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter A startup founded by former teenage drone-racing champions won a US Army contract worth up to $500
million for its FPV attack drones This marks the Pentagon's largest small-drone contract ever, running up till 2031 even as it grapples with taking on Chinese-built drones and components with a much smaller manufacturing base This contract allows Neros to push for a 250,000 sq ft factory targeting one million drones annually by 2028 Neros Technologies, founded in 2023 by former teenage drone-racing prodigies Soren
Monroe-Anderson and Olaf Hichwa, has won a US Army indefinite-delivery contract worth up to $500 million for its Archer FPV attack drones.

The contract runs through June 2031 and is among the largest of its kind. It comes off the back of tens of thousands of deliveries to Ukraine under a multinational drone-coalition contract. Neros maintains a Kyiv office supporting the country's war effort, where the Archer serves as a Chinese-component-free alternative to the cheap drones that dominate the market elsewhere. It marks one of the Pentagon's biggest commitments yet to the cheap, expendable aircraft that Ukraine's war has turned into the
defining weapon of modern ground combat, and, increasingly, of the airspace just above it. Latest Videos From Watch full video here: What is Neros'
Archer Drone? The Archer drone is arguably the most successful
US-manufactured budget FPV drone to date.

With two years of Ukrainian frontline use, deliveries running at a thousand-plus per month, and cumulative shipments in the tens of thousands, Neros has a record no other US maker comes close to matching on volume alone. You may like US buys 2000 F-Drones F10 attack UAVs from Ukraine as the Pentagon moves to its next phase Ex-Google CEO is key to Ukraine's most formidable drone weapon to date - $5000 Hornet can carry 5Kg of explosives on a 200Km, one-way trip Ukraine wants to be the biggest drone and robot
producer worldwide

The Archer is an 8-inch quadcopter carrying a 4.5-pound payload beyond 12 miles, built entirely without Chinese components: a rare mix that put Neros
on the Pentagon's Blue UAS approved list and earned it Chinese sanctions.

The deal for Neros' Archer flows from the Army's Purpose-Built Attritable Systems (PBAS) program, which selected it last November as one of three primary manufacturers tasked with pushing modular FPV drones down to the platoon level, and it lands amid a service-wide procurement lurch: Army officials say they intend to grow annual drone purchases from around 50,000
to at least one million within roughly two years. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Neros is hoping not only to ride the wave but to capture the bulk of it: the endeavor that started with 30 basement-built drones the founders hand-delivered to Ukraine for testing is now aiming considerably higher, with the US military underwriting its ambitions.

There is a reason for this: Neros is the closest thing the US has to an
answer to Chinese dominance in the industry. This year, it occupied Project Millennium, a 250,000-square-foot Los Angeles facility roughly 100 times its previous footprint, and it has publicly committed to reaching 1 million
drones a year by 2028.

If the promise holds, Neros would single-handedly increase current US drone capacity roughly tenfold: a 2025 estimate put total American manufacturing capacity at approximately 100,000 units a year.

For now, the Pentagon's Drone Dominance initiative, roughly $1.1 billion
aimed at fielding some 300,000 low-cost attack drones by the end of 2027, keeps colliding with the fact that most American-made FPVs cost multiples of the roughly $5,000 per unit the military currently wants to pay. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/us-startup-founded-by-former-teenage-drone-racer s-just-won-one-of-the-pentagons-biggest-small-drone-deals-neros-has-shipped-te ns-of-thousands-of-uavs-to-ukraine-and-inked-a-usd500m-contract


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