Why it matters
Stark Defence, legally SKD SE, is a Berlin strike-drone company founded in 2024 to field European one-way effectors at a tempo that conventional primes have not matched. The company says it went from founding to frontline deployment in 13 months and now runs 18,500 square metres of production across Germany, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Greece and Sweden.
Virtus is already in use in Ukraine, and on 26 February 2026 Stark signed a Bundeswehr framework to deliver several thousand systems within two years after qualification, aimed first at Brigade 45 in Lithuania. On 23 September 2026, senior vice president Josef Kranawetvogl said first German deliveries were about to start. That is still a company timetable, not an independently confirmed accepted delivery.
History
A group of German operators including Florian Seibel, Uwe Horstmann and Johannes Schaback incorporated the company in 2024. Seibel had already built Quantum Systems, an ISR-drone firm; Horstmann, a Project A co-founder, became CEO in October 2025. Virtus and the Minerva mission software were presented in early 2025, a Munich plant followed, and Sequoia led a $62 million round at about $500 million in August 2025.
On 31 October 2025 the Financial Times reported that four Virtus rounds missed in British and German trials, including a crash in a German forest and a battery fire in Kenya; Stark called crashes part of development. A February 2026 financing took the valuation above 1 billion euros. The Bundestag budget committee approved a Stark-plus-Helsing loitering-munition buy on 25 February 2026 after a public row over Peter Thiel's stake, which the defence ministry said it had cleared as a single-digit holding with no control rights. Sequoia and Founders Fund co-led a 500 million euro Series C in June 2026.
Technology and products
Virtus is an electric VTOL loitering munition. The February award release cites more than 130 kilometres of range, up to 90 minutes of endurance and a German warhead; n-tv, citing manufacturer figures, reports 75 minutes, 130 kilometres and a take-off weight of up to 33 kilograms. VTOL is the operational pitch: unprepared-ground launch and recoverable training flights without a warhead. Minerva is the human-in-the-loop command layer for swarming and recce-strike.
The homepage also lists Gambit, a man-portable short-range quadcopter; Cascade, a tube-launched multi-round effector; Vanta unmanned surface vessels; and a MOSA offer for vendor-agnostic C2. Wikipedia records Vanta-4 and Vanta-6 plus an intent to turn Cascade into a Bundeswehr everyman's weapon. Those later products are on the public list, not yet disclosed production programmes.
Business model
The commercial core is selling expendable, software-defined munitions that are cheap relative to the armour they are meant to kill. Kranawetvogl put the Virtus unit price below 100,000 euros. More than 45 percent of spend goes to R&D, per the company, and more than 80 percent of the Series C is earmarked for manufacturing and research. Plants are spread so that lines can be copied and Ukrainian feedback can enter the design loop. The company does not disclose revenue, profit or loss.
Financials
Bloomberg, via TNW, put the 23 June 2026 Series C at 500 million euros and a valuation above 3.5 billion euros, with cumulative capital above 660 million euros. Other media, summarised by Wikipedia, cite about 3.2 to 3.5 billion euros. Sequoia's August 2025 round had valued the firm at about $500 million; a February 2026 round crossed 1 billion euros.
The German award is the largest public demand signal, but the figures are not one number. TNW, citing Bloomberg, says initial contracts of about 269 million euros each for Stark and Helsing, with frameworks that could reach 1 billion euros per company. Wikipedia cites Reuters' 536 million euro two-vendor plan inside a 4.3 billion euro framework, and taz reporting that parliament capped the buy at 2 billion euros with about 540 million euros for the first purchase. Kranawetvogl described a first charge of 275 million euros. Treat those as contract ceiling, first call-off and company description, not as recognised revenue.
Competition and constraints
Helsing split the German medium-range loitering-munition award and is raising at a much higher valuation. Rheinmetall was left out of the initial buy after its own drone programme slipped, per TNW. Quantum Systems, Seibel's earlier company, remains the ISR counterpart and a competitor for talent and capital. The October 2025 FT trial report is still the main public performance blemish; the company has not published a later independent hit-rate. Headcount is itself inconsistent: Wikipedia still lists about 400 staff in 2026, while Kranawetvogl said 750 on 23 September 2026.
What to watch
The gate is qualification and a first accepted Bundeswehr delivery, then whether systems actually reach Panzerbrigade 45 and fly, without warheads, at the November 2026 NATO exercise in Lithuania that Kranawetvogl described. Watch factory output against the Series C promise to fund manufacturing at thousands of systems a month, and whether Gambit, Cascade and Vanta win named production customers. Unnamed additional European customers, two undisclosed Kyiv-area plants, and the 400-versus-750 employee figures all need a later sourced update.