Rift, a French DeepTech firm specialising in on-demand aerial intelligence, declares a funding spherical of €4.6 million to speed up the deployment of the primary European on-demand aerial intelligence community, solely operated from the corporate’s headquarters within the Paris area.
The spherical included €3 million in fairness from AlleyCorp and OVNI Capital, supplemented by €1.6 million in public funding.
“Rift is constructing the lacking hyperlink between satellites and floor groups: an aerial intelligence community able to performing reconnaissance missions in minutes, with no pilot on website, offering real-time determination help,” stated Daniel Nef, co-founder and CEO of Rift . “Our ambition is to equip Europe with a sovereign and resilient aerial intelligence infrastructure, devoted to public security and important infrastructure.”
In 2025, a number of related European startups lively in aerial intelligence and adjoining autonomous-drone applied sciences secured notable funding rounds, together with Quantum Techniques in Germany with €160 million to scale its autonomous aerial-intelligence techniques, Voliro in Switzerland with a Sequence A extension totalling €19.8 million for its aerial-robotics inspection platform, Poland’s Orbotix with €6.5 million to advance AI-driven defence drones, and Monopulse, which acquired €1.12 million to broaden its NATO-grade UAV capabilities.
Collectively, these rounds quantity to roughly €187 million flowing into the sector.
Towards this backdrop, Rift’s €4.6 million elevate contributes to a broader continental push towards sovereign aerial-intelligence and autonomous-drone infrastructure. Though not one of the recognized friends are France-based, the size of capital getting into the broader ecosystem underscores the relevance of Rift’s deal with built-in, on-demand aerial-intelligence networks inside Europe’s evolving technological and safety panorama.
Based in 2023 by Daniel Nef and Dorian Millière, previously of OpenClassrooms, Rift develops an on-demand aerial intelligence community. Combining internally designed long-endurance VTOL drones, autonomous deployment stations, and the proprietary software program platform RiftOS, Rift provides a “Surveillance-as-a-Service” mannequin.
The corporate goals to equip Europe with a sovereign aerial intelligence infrastructure, devoted to the safety of territories, populations, and important infrastructure.
Present options are expensive and inefficient: based on figures supplied by the corporate one hour of helicopter flight can price greater than €3k and requires pilots and different assist companies on everlasting stand-by.
Because of this, operators are pressured to area vital missions out, creating blind spots that enhance long-term dangers.
Rift’s built-in expertise combines long-endurance VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Touchdown) drones, autonomous deployment stations, and the RiftOS software program platform. This method permits for the centralisation of piloting at a single website, allegedly providing prices ten instances decrease than conventional strategies and eliminating the necessity for twenty-four/7 area groups.
“Rift is taking a key step in structuring the European aerial intelligence market, multiplying surveillance capabilities whereas considerably reducing prices,” stated Luc Ryan-Schreiber, Principal at AlleyCorp. “Rift’s integration of {hardware}, software program, and information into the identical structure has the chance to enhance the safety of state infrastructure and produce much-needed technological developments to the detection and safety of key property.”
Rift will use the discovering to speed up the manufacturing of its autonomous drone stations, primarily based on revolutionary manufacturing processes for large-scale, low-cost manufacturing. Every shipping-container-sized station homes a number of drones that function in steady relay, making certain 24/7 aerial protection.
In parallel, Rift is accelerating the event of its evaluation algorithms to automate all the mission cycle by 2027: planning, execution, anomaly detection, and reporting, with out human intervention.
Its reconnaissance expertise is aimed toward opening European skies to autonomous operations and facilitate the deployment of a drone fleet, notably for border surveillance and important website safety, two markets the place reactivity, service continuity, and value management have turn into strategic imperatives.
Within the medium time period, Rift is getting ready the deployment of its community on a European scale, prioritising delicate zones the place intrusions, sabotage, and threats demand elevated vigilance.
Pushed by a quickly rising world drone market, the corporate is strengthening its industrial capability and plans to double its workforce by the tip of 2026, with key recruitments in R&D, information, certification, and manufacturing. Rift is already collaborating on pilot initiatives associated to maritime and terrestrial surveillance with states and industrial companions.
