en.Wedoany.com Reported - Danish startup Acodyne has secured €2.5 million in pre-seed funding to develop unmanned cargo aircraft for heavy-lift logistics missions serving defense, maritime, and remote areas.

The round was co-led by Swedish defense venture capital firm Gungnir Capital and Danish VC PSV Hafnium, with participation from EIFO, SAP9 Group, and GreenUP IV Invest. The funds will support Acodyne in contributing to logistics resilience for Europe and NATO, as well as Denmark's industrial growth in defense technology.

Acodyne co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer Jasmina Pless stated that this funding enables the company to move from a validated concept to a flight-tested platform, advancing alongside investors who understand the operational realities of defense and maritime logistics as well as the technical requirements of unmanned aircraft manufacturing. She believes the cross-border collaboration with Gungnir Capital, PSV Hafnium, and EIFO demonstrates that European capital is willing to support the hardware investments needed to achieve logistics resilience.

In the defense sector, resupply currently relies on ground transport or helicopter missions, the latter exposing personnel and aircraft to threats. In maritime operations, a missing component can halt production, costing hundreds of thousands of euros per day, with helicopters often being the only means of timely delivery. In remote areas like Greenland, where towns lack road connections, critical supplies may take days to arrive. Across these three domains, demand for resilient, on-demand logistics is rising, and manned helicopters are no longer sufficient.

The unmanned cargo aircraft developed by Acodyne is designed specifically for urgent heavy-lift missions, combining vertical takeoff and landing with fixed-wing flight at jet speeds. The platform is fully electric and modular, aimed at delivering cargo directly to forward supply points where helicopters remain the only fast option today. Autonomy is handled by the eTHOR artificial intelligence flight stack, developed in collaboration with DTU Compute.

Gungnir Capital Managing Partner Max Villman stated that Acodyne represents a completely new take on unmanned military logistics, offering jet speed, helicopter-class payload, full ground-to-air autonomy, and all-electric operation. It compresses one of the costliest elements of modern combat—manned helicopter logistics—into a platform that requires no personnel operating in threat environments. NATO needs effective, scalable resupply.

Acodyne is currently developing its first model, the E100, with plans for first flight testing by the end of 2026. The pre-seed funding supports prototype development and flight testing in real mission environments, while laying the groundwork for scaling commercial operations.

PSV Hafnium Managing Partner Marianne Hyltoft stated that the firm supported Acodyne early on, and its engineering progress along with independent third-party validation convinced PSV Hafnium to help bring in Gungnir Capital and EIFO. This funding will move Acodyne from a validated concept to a pre-production prototype and toward building an aerial logistics network for defense, infrastructure, and remote operations.

Initiatives such as the EU's U-space are paving the way for unmanned aircraft to operate in regulated corridors in the future, covering rural and intercity routes. Meanwhile, the push for autonomy in NATO and European defense industries is stimulating public and private sector demand for unmanned platforms, and advances in AI and battery technology are making unmanned heavy logistics a new market category.

Acodyne's four co-founders come from the Danish Ministry of Defence, Scandinavian Airlines, Cobham Aerospace Communications, and DTU Space. CEO Mads Schnack previously worked on counter-drone systems and as a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) at the Danish Ministry of Defence. CTO Claes Nicolaisen is a helicopter and fixed-wing pilot with 25 years of aviation experience. Chief Electronics Engineer Martin Arndt has 25 years of experience in aerospace communications and aircraft systems certification. Chief Commercial Officer Jasmina Pless, a former economic diplomat, has supported deep tech companies in Silicon Valley. The broader team consists of ten people.

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