- Alpine Eagle's Sentinel system uses airborne motherships carrying kamikaze interceptors that can capture hostile drones with nets or destroy them.
- The German army is the startup's launch customer, helping it achieve seven-digit revenues within its first year of operation.
- The €10.25M funding will expand its team of machine learning practitioners and aeronautical engineers to approximately 40 employees.
German defense tech startup Alpine Eagle has raised €10.25 million in Series A funding led by British VC firm IQ Capital to advance its counter-drone technology.
The Munich-based company, founded in 2023, develops Sentinel—an airborne system designed to detect and neutralize inexpensive attack drones that have become increasingly prevalent in modern warfare.
"We use inexpensive, mass-producible systems to establish a symmetry against the numerical advantage of cheap strike drones," said Dutch entrepreneur Jan-Hendrik Boelens, co-founder of Alpine Eagle.
Unlike ground-based alternatives, Sentinel operates in the air with modular sensors that are unaffected by terrain obstacles. Its mothership carries interceptors that can either capture drones with nets or destroy them completely.
The system employs AI for onboard data processing and navigation, with algorithms that adapt based on real-world encounters.
A key tactical advantage of Sentinel is its swarming capability, allowing a single operator to manage multiple drones simultaneously.
"We realized that all Western powers have the problem of not having enough soldiers, so we try to build a system where many drones can be operated by a single operator," Boelens explained.
The funding round includes investors from Estonia, Germany, and Poland, reflecting growing European interest in defense technology.
While currently focused on military applications, Alpine Eagle is exploring uses in infrastructure protection and law enforcement.
The company is also testing its system in Ukraine after validating it with the German army.
Edited by Annette George
