Arlington drone software firm raises $130M in Series B funding

Auterion, an Arlington County-based provider of software for military drone swarms, announced this week it has raised $130 million in a Series B funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

The company states that the Series B funding will help scale the production of its AuterionOS platform and Nemyx defense systems, which enable autonomous drones to operate as coordinated swarms in combat. Auterion says its AI-enabled software aims to “transform the battlefield.”

As part of this investment round, Bessemer Partner Alex Ferrara will join Auterion’s board. Other investors in the funding round include existing investor Lakestar, which led Auterion’s first institutional round (and has invested in every round since) as well as existing investors Mosaic Ventures and Costanoa Ventures.

Of the $130 million from the latest round, $25 million is backed by the U.S. Department of Defense, recently rebranded by President Trump as the Department of War.

The company says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the need for wartime mass production and that “a seismic shift has emerged in terms of awareness of what is required to protect America and her allies.”

Auterion believes its AI technology will help combatants on the battlefield deploy drone swarms on a massive scale, overwhelming defenses. Auterion says its open platform software has already been deployed in Ukraine.

“The future of warfare is software-defined, unmanned and at scale,” said Auterion Founder and CEO Lorenz Meier in a statement. “Auterion’s customers are taking the lessons from Ukraine and applying them to deploying drone swarms. Decisive advantage on the battlefield won’t be achieved by individual drones — it’ll be achieved by autonomous mass. This funding will allow us to provide Auterion’s AI-enabled swarming capabilities to democratic governments around the world who need to develop those capabilities at scale.”

The company’s AuterionOS platform unifies fleets from multiple manufacturers into a single, coordinated fabric, allowing one operator to control many autonomous vehicles simultaneously.

Auterion, which specializes in software for uncrewed vehicles, was founded in 2017 in Zurich, Switzerland. In 2024, the company relocated its headquarters to Arlington while maintaining engineering operations in Zurich and Munich. The company says it has evolved from its open-platform autopilot origins to become the operating system for autonomous mass operations.