Manna Air Delivery has closed a $50 million Series B round and announced a fast push into the United States, bringing the Dublin-based drone delivery startup’s total funding to $110 million. The April 1, 2026 raise was led by Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest, with participation from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and Boston’s Schooner Capital.
Underdog Bets On A 40-Base US Build-Out
ARK’s check makes Manna one of the few non-American companies in the drone delivery race, sitting alongside Alphabet’s Wing and Zipline. The fund, known for backing OpenAI, Anthropic, Tesla and SpaceX, said it likes Manna’s seven-year operational track record of more than 250,000 regulated commercial UAV flights in Europe. The company plans to scale to 40 bases in the United States, opening sites in suburban markets where rotorcraft can fly four to ten kilometres on a single hop.
Partner Stack Goes Global
Manna has spent the past 18 months stitching itself into the major food and convenience platforms. The startup now plugs into Uber, DoorDash, Deliveroo and Just Eat Takeaway, letting merchants on those apps slot drone delivery in next to bikes and cars. CEO Bobby Healy has argued that Manna’s unit economics — a single pilot supervising a fleet, fixed-route corridors, and quick battery swaps — finally beat traditional delivery on cost in dense suburban geographies.
Why The Round Matters
The Series B lands in a year when drone delivery has matured from pilot demos to real volume. Zipline closed its own $200 million extension at a $7.6 billion valuation in March, and the FAA’s Part 108 rulemaking is finally lifting the visual line-of-sight rules that capped operators for the past decade. Manna’s US plan banks on those rules clearing this year.
Readers tracking the wider drone economy can also see our coverage of Matternet’s NHS deployment in London, Serve Robotics’ new LA laundry route, and the recent Uber-Nuro investment.
Reporting based on coverage from Business Wire, Fortune, DroneLife and TechCrunch.