Ukrainian Drone Autonomy Developer Occam Raises €3.8 Million

The British-Ukrainian defense technology company Occam Industries has raised €3.8 million in investment to develop autonomous drone control software.

Occam Industries discussed the investment with Militarnyi.

Danish venture capital fund North Ventures led the funding round. Finnish Sparkmind and UK-based Grenadyr also participated, while Antler, Tech Horizons, T|Y|R.vc, and Freedom Fund made follow-on investments.

Following the new funding round, Occam Industries’ total investment raised has reached €7 million.

The funds will support research and development, expand the engineering team in Ukraine, scale deployment of the technology by the Ukrainian military, integrate it with new unmanned platforms, and enter defense markets in Europe and other NATO countries.

Drone Autonomy

Occam Industries develops onboard software that enables autonomous operation of unmanned systems using AI and computer vision.

A key feature of the company’s approach is its ability to integrate autonomous capabilities into existing mass-produced unmanned systems without significantly modifying their design or changing the manufacturing process.

The software runs directly on the UAV’s onboard computing module, enabling it to perform specific mission phases without maintaining a constant connection with the operator or relying on satellite navigation signals.

This is intended to maintain system functionality in environments with active electronic warfare (EW) systems and in the event of a loss of the command-and-control link. To integrate these capabilities, the company developed the modular Occam Ludus platform.

“Today, Occam’s technology is already being actively deployed and tested with several Ukrainian manufacturers and military brigades, and feedback from the frontline directly informs the product,” Gui Wainwright, co-founder and CEO of Occam Industries, shared.

The company’s first solution built on the Ludus platform was the Occam Ambush system. It combines autonomous target detection, tracking, and guidance, and is already being integrated into mass-produced FPV drones used in Ukraine.

Using computer vision algorithms, the software can track a designated target and guide the drone without requiring continuous manual control.

Other areas the company is working on include terminal-phase autonomous guidance for interceptor drones, target matching and recognition for strike and reconnaissance missions, mine-laying, and logistics operations.

In February, Occam Industries raised €3 million in a pre-seed round. Following the round, the company underwent field testing as part of Ukraine’s Brave1 defense innovation cluster and moved on to integrating and deploying its technologies in cooperation with Ukrainian drone manufacturers and military units.