Neros Technologies, the Southern California defense drone startup building Blue UAS-cleared first-person-view aircraft for the U.S. military and allies, announced on August 11, 2026 that it has raised a $250 million Series C at a $2.5 billion post-money valuation. The round is co-led by Sequoia Capital and the American Strategic Technology Fund (ASTF), the U.S. Defense Department-affiliated growth vehicle now writing large checks into industrial base companies.
A vertically integrated attritable drone stack
Neros owns the full drone stack—airframes, motors, radios, autopilots and the AI software that runs on them—and manufactures without Chinese components. The company, founded in 2023 by former professional drone racers Soren Monroe-Anderson and Olaf Hichwa, ships the NDAA-compliant Archer FPV quadcopter to the U.S. Army under a program of record valued at up to $500 million, and secured a separate multi-million dollar Marine Corps contract for the Archer Strike variant earlier this year.
Capital targets Archer AI and the Bandit interceptor
Proceeds will accelerate two new programs: Archer AI, an autonomy-augmented strike quadcopter that reduces the operator burden in contested electromagnetic environments, and Bandit, a low-cost counter-UAS interceptor aimed at the flood of Group 1 and 2 threats now dominating modern battlefields. The company has also committed to standing up Project Millennium, a 250,000-square-foot Torrance factory that CEO Monroe-Anderson says is the foundation for producing one million drones per year by 2028.
Investor syndicate and market context
Alongside Sequoia and ASTF, the round drew Interlagos, Valor Equity Partners, Allen & Co., Thiel Capital and Spark Capital, plus follow-on capital from existing backers. The financing lands as Washington doubles down on the domestic drone industrial base: the DoD's Office of Strategic Capital just extended an $820 million conditional loan to Performance Drone Works, and the DHS's $1.5 billion counter-UAS IDIQ has crystallized a new tier of Anduril-scale competitors. Neros is now firmly among them.
Reporting based on coverage from PR Newswire, TechStartups, sUAS News and Tectonic Defense.