Drones Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2025

Detect and safely block unwanted drone intrusions. Track down and arrest unauthorized operators. Developed by experts from Israel Defense Forces and currently serving more than 25 countries, ApolloShield is the world leader in detecting and blocking drone intrusions, as well as tracking down and arresting unauthorized drone operators.

Avion is a drone-based digital health platform, designed to bridge the gap between remote clinics and urban healthcare infrastructures. By connecting these isolated clinics with sophisticated labs and well-stocked pharmacies in cities, Avion brings a new era of remote diagnostics and prescription fulfilment. Avion ensures the rapid, safe, and efficient delivery of vital medical supplies and clinical samples, even to the most hard-to-reach locations. Avion's operation uniquely combines cutting-edge autonomous drone technology with digital health platforms. Our drones, built with advanced eVTOL capabilities, ensure seamless take-off and landing capabilities, even in challenging terrains. Avion's digital health platform serves as the connective tissue between urban health centers and remote clinics. The platform features an intuitive interface, making it easy for healthcare providers to order necessary supplies, track shipments, and even communicate with laboratory and pharmacy staff.

At Zeitview, our goal is to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure. We do this by combining advanced inspection software with the ability to capture visual data in more than 60 countries. This allows us to deliver safer, faster, lower-cost inspections of energy and infrastructure assets with a high degree of accuracy and repeatability. We use artificial intelligence and machine learning to ingest and analyze vast amounts of visual data to provide objective insights that our customers can act on immediately.

We're building a Micro Visual Positioning System (VPS) that can be retrofit onto any drone that simulates a GPS. Our VPS uses cameras and an accelerometer/gyroscope as well as reference satellite imagery for positioning. The system is entirely self contained, can't be jammed and has no RF signature.

Buoyant Aero builds zero-emissions autonomous drone blimps to break free from existing advertising paradigms and reach new audiences in new places. Whether it’s on the beach, outside the convention center, or through the window of your target executive’s office, Buoyant’s blimps amplify your message to create measurable brand benefits.

Our software allows drones to fly indoors and collect analytics, helping warehouses automate inventory tracking.

Splash is developing the next generation of autonomous surface vessels (ASVs) to provide National Security and defend critical assets such as oil rigs and shipping terminals. Our long-term vision is to make traditional naval vessels obsolete by creating a fleet of low-cost and versatile boats which will be able to dominate the seas. Our expertise in mass manufacturing, engineering and quickly scaling operations will make this vision a reality.

The rise of low-cost commercial drones has introduced a new class of asymmetric threats to U.S. national security. Off-the-shelf platforms now deliver ISR, contraband, or payloads with precision, while operating below radar coverage and beyond line-of-sight. These systems—often costing under $1,000—are capable of neutralizing multi-million-dollar defense assets. For drone detection to be viable at scale, sensors must achieve cost parity with the threat. In response, the Department of Defense established multiple initiatives to counter the rapid proliferation of uncrewed aerial systems. The Joint Counter-small UAS Office (JCO) coordinates policy and acquisition across services. The Base Defense Cross-Functional Team enables persistent perimeter security for CONUS and OCONUS installations. Falcon Peak, Red Sands, and related exercises are accelerating deployment of counter-UAS technologies in complex environments. This threat is no longer exclusive to military operations overseas. It now directly targets the U.S. homeland. In 2025, an executive order designated the protection of American airspace sovereignty a national priority, recognizing that uncrewed systems present both surveillance and kinetic risks within the United States. That same year, a domestic extremist plotted to destroy a Tennessee power substation using a drone rigged with C-4 explosives—a plan disrupted by undercover federal agents. In July 2025, an unauthorized drone collided with a rescue helicopter during disaster response operations in Kerr County, Texas, forcing an emergency landing and halting flood relief efforts. These are not isolated incidents—they reflect a broader shift in drone-enabled threats against homeland infrastructure and public safety. Guardian RF builds passive, radiofrequency-based drone detection systems for force protection and critical infrastructure defense inside the United States. Our systems are fielded under an AFWERX Direct-to-Phase-II SBIR with the 30th Security Forces Squadron at Vandenberg Space Force Base, deployed by local and state law enforcement, and integrated into commercial security operations. We were selected as a finalist for Falcon Peak 25.2, the Department of Defense’s premier counter-UAS exercise. Scout is a passive RF sensor for fixed, mobile, or temporary deployments. It detects and classifies drone control signals—including modified variants of DJI, Crossfire, and ExpressLRS—at standoff ranges. Scout supports direct integration into TAK and other operational APIs and is managed through GRF-SECURE, our secure interface for live monitoring, threat alerting, and forensic review. Mosaic extends coverage in austere environments, enabling persistent low-altitude monitoring and classification of non–Remote ID drones across complex terrain—without active emissions or mesh dependency. Built in the United States, Guardian RF delivers scalable, automated, and cost-aligned drone detection—passive by design and hardened for real-world deployment across the homeland.

Flirtey is the leading drone delivery service. We are reinventing the on-demand economy with our network of flying robots for last mile delivery. Our mission is to save lives and change lifestyles by making delivery instant. Flirtey’s drone delivery service is faster, more efficient and the ultimate customer experience. We’re rapidly growing our team and achieving a record number of historic firsts in the drone delivery industry, advancing autonomy, safety systems and advanced delivery technology. If you are interested in having your goods delivered via Flirtey, or joining the team that is transforming the delivery industry, visit www.flirtey.com Recent Company Milestones: - October 2017 – Announced a partnership to launch the first automated external defibrillator (AED) drone delivery service in the U.S. - January 2017 – Raised $16 million in Series A funding from top Silicon Valley investors. - August 2016 – Launched the world’s first commercial pizza-by-drone delivery model in partnership with Domino’s. - July 2016 – Conducted the first fully autonomous, FAA-approved drone delivery from a store to a home in partnership with 7-Eleven. - June 2016 – Completed the first fully autonomous, FAA-approved ship-to-shore drone delivery in collaboration with Johns Hopkins. - April 2016 – The Flirtey drone used to make the first FAA-approved delivery in the U.S. accepted into the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, alongside the Space Shuttle Discovery and the Wright Flyer. - March 2016 – Conducted the first fully autonomous, FAA-approved urban drone delivery in the U.S. - July 2015 – Completed the first FAA-approved drone delivery on U.S. soil in collaboration with NASA Langley Research Center. - Summer 2015 – Graduated Y Combinator. - 2013 – Founded the first drone delivery service in the world.

Perseus Defense is building a mass-manufactured Counter UAS solution for the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Current solutions are one-to-one, too dangerous for use on U.S. soil, and orders of magntiude more expensive than the threats they defeat. Our self-guided missile platform is man-portable and multi-domain capable. It senses, engages, and eliminates threats with drastically reduced cost per engagement over existing kinetic solutions. Solving this critical national security problem requires understanding complex DoD needs along with actual rocket science including aerodynamics, guidance, navigation, control, and much more. Jason and Steve met at Penn State while they pursued their PhD and MS in aerospace engineering, respectively. Their past experiences designing space helicopters for NASA, making Boeing airliners land autonomously, controlling swarms of unmanned autonomous systems, teaching aerospace engineering at Stanford, winning multiple ONR and DOE engineering competitions, and founding an international drone competition makes them the perfect team to create transformative solutions protecting our service members. "If you build this, it will be mandatory equipment for every truck, boat, and convoy in the U.S. Military. We're talking thousands of units." - Former DoD Procurement Officer The White House just released Executive Order, "Unleashing American Drone Dominance" which adds billions of dollars, government support, and streamlined regulations to enable the development of our product. Traction: Jason and Steve used more than 100 end-user interviews across the DoD and DHS to shape the product to something of critical need to both boots on the ground and DoD purchasers. In 8 short weeks following a strict 2-week design-build-test cycle, the team has gone through 4 major guided missile iterations with over 30 live-fire flight tests. They were invited to Ft. Hood to present their platform to the 1st Cavalry Division, and also briefed the Pentagon and U.S. congressmen on current U.S. vulnerabilities to advanced drone technology. Perseus Defense is actively standing up cooperative research agreements with U.S. Army DEVCOM's Applied Research Laboratory, Aviation and Missile Center, Armaments Center, and High Performance Computing Modernization Program.

Building Stratospheric Near Space UAV Platform. Utilized by military to provide:- - Stratospheric high altitude stealth ISR - Low-cost stealth loitering kamikaze strikes - Atmospheric Meterological Data Capture and Nuclear Fallout testing Systems currently deployed at Indo-China LoC to help out the free-world's military.

When a 911 call is received, our drone is autonomously dispatched from a fire station and flies to the scene. It streams a live video feed back to the first responders, providing them with key situational details, such as the size and exact location of a fire.

The future for autonomous industrial drones is in sight - Enabling safer drone operation through intelligent collision avoidance. We are a Y Combinator and Silicon Valley investor company with a team from NASA, Boeing and PhDs in computer vision. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/y7tm4zr8 Website: www.IrisOnBoard.com

Volansi builds and operates high-payload long-range unmanned aerial vehicles to service B2B customers with a point-to-point delivery solution that saves them millions of dollars in down-time costs. We service customers around the world with a focus on defense, commercial, and medical supply deliveries. Our aerial vehicles can transport loads up to 200 lbs up to 1,000 mi. Volansi was founded by Hannan Parvizian and Wesley Zheng in 2015, and is based in San Francisco.