The war in Ukraine has shown that warfare changes by the day. It’s also clear that the tech used to make war today is costly: While larger countries can afford legions of tanks, helicopters, and precision-strike systems, smaller nations find themselves scrambling for cheaper ways to defend themselves.
Origin, a new defense tech startup out of Latvia, specializes in making reusable, autonomous drones that can deliver munitions far more cheaply than similar solutions. The company already has commercial agreements with two NATO countries, though these remain unnamed for security reasons.
Founded in 2022 by Agris Kipurs and Ilya Nevdah, Origin emerged after the pair exited Airdog, which made an autonomous drone that is famously used for recording extreme sports. Eventually, Airdog was acquired by U.S. smart home solutions developer Alarm.com.
“Airdog was a consumer drone. We were the first in the world to launch an autonomously flying system in 2015,” Kipurs (CEO) told TechCrunch. “We founded Origin in March of 2022, obviously in response to the invasion of Ukraine. We realized that we had to go back to doing what we do best, this time for military applications. We knew that the skill set that we have as a team is rare, as we’d been building autonomous systems for 10+ years.”
The startup’s flagship product, BEAK, is an ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) drone with precision guidance technology. It packs a camera, is capable of autonomous flight, and can withstand intense radio jamming. It’s also man-portable, making it well suited to wars like the one in Ukraine.
These days, many of us are familiar with images of ‘first-person view’ (FPV) drones, carrying grenades and slamming into tanks to blow them up. Clearly, these drones must be replaced.
Instead of blowing itself up, the BEAK delivers munitions to the target while remaining intact, meaning it can be reused — the cost savings can therefore be significant.
“The BEAK is a precision guided weapons system,” Kipurs explained. “It’s not a drone. Think of it as a flying Javelin. Drones are typically used for reconnaissance-type applications, not for delivering precision strikes. This is more like a traditional military drone, only it’s small, with the cost per strike approximately 20 times lower than the alternatives.”
Kipurs believes the BEAK will appeal to smaller countries: “Latvia and every small democracy across the world desperately needs the tech community to get behind the mission. They realize that they can no longer afford warfare the old-fashioned way.”
Origin recently raised €2.4 million in an early-stage funding round that was led by Change Ventures and saw Silicon Roundabout Ventures also investing. The company has also raised €1.6 million in EU grants and support from the Latvian Ministry of Defence, taking its total funding to €4 million.
Andris K. Berzins, a partner at Change Ventures, added in a statement: “Having known Agris and Ilya for a decade through their successful launch of the world’s leading action sports drone Airdog, I knew this team is unlike the many that have started learning how to build a drone startup only since the Ukraine invasion two years ago. Their ability to combine this expertise with an ambitious vision to reshape the precision weapons market, and their remarkable traction within the past 18 months, made investing in Origin an easy choice.”