Auterion

What It Is

Auterion makes the software and flight computers that let other companies’ drones fly and strike on their own. Lorenz Meier and Kevin Sartori founded it in Zurich in November 2017. Meier, now the chief executive, created PX4, the open-source autopilot that Auterion’s software is built on.

Its headquarters is now in Arlington, Virginia, with a European base in Munich, engineering in Zurich and staff in Kyiv. It started out selling to commercial drone makers, and Freefly’s Astro mapping drone still runs on a Skynode.

Auterion now calls itself a defence software company. It names Rheinmetall and Lockheed Martin among the manufacturers that use its software. Meier told Reuters in July 2026 that it was helping supply 100,000 drones to Ukraine that year.

Key Products

AuterionOS is the operating system, a commercial version of PX4. The company says it runs on air, land and sea platforms.

Skynode is the hardware: a flight controller and mission computer in one unit. The current flight-controller family is Skynode X. Skynode S is a small, cheap board with a processor for computer vision. Fitted to an FPV drone as a “strike kit”, it adds terminal guidance against moving targets. Auterion says it works when GPS or the radio link is jammed.

Skynode S is also the core of the SLM-10, a quadcopter design on the Pentagon’s Blue UAS list since 20 October 2025.

Nemyx, introduced in September 2025, coordinates swarms of drones from different makers. Under the Defense Innovation Unit’s Artemis project, Auterion and an unnamed Ukrainian manufacturer built a long-range one-way drone navigated by a Skynode N. Auterion says it carries a warhead of up to 40 kg as far as 1,000 miles.

Business and Financial Position

Auterion is private. On 23 September 2025 it announced a $130 million Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with Lakestar, Mosaic Ventures and Costanoa Ventures. Of that, $25 million was non-dilutive capital from Rochefort, backed by the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital. Meier put the valuation above $600 million, according to press reports.

In November 2025 Rheinmetall bought a stake directly. Meier called it “significant” but said it was not a blocking minority. Reuters reported then that Auterion had revenue of about €100 million, 160 staff, and had turned profitable that year.

Most of its announced deals are for Ukraine. In July 2025 Auterion was reported to have won a $50 million Pentagon contract for 33,000 strike kits for Ukraine. On 13 July 2026 it announced its largest deal: Skynode S kits for 50,000 SkyFall Shrike drones, paid for by a European NATO country. Reuters, citing a source, reported that Germany was paying about €90 million.

In Germany it builds whole drones through a joint venture with the Ukrainian airframe maker Airlogix, formed in February 2026. On 21 September 2026 the partners said mass production had begun of the Seth X and Anubis strike drones, under a German-funded contract for more than 5,000 systems.

Why It Matters

Auterion sells the guidance and leaves the airframes to others: SkyFall’s Shrike, Airlogix’s Seth X, Freefly’s Astro. Its volumes depend on other companies’ factories and on Western aid budgets for Ukraine. Meier himself has said any interruption in Ukrainian state funding “would collapse most companies overnight”.

Most of its performance claims, including the swarm demonstrations, are the company’s own. The one public US scorecard is mixed. Auterion Government Solutions won a Drone Dominance order for 2,160 one-way attack drones and has shipped them all. On 1 October 2026, about eight weeks after the delivery window closed, the programme’s leaderboard showed 1,280 accepted by government inspectors.