Paris-area startup Rift has raised €4.6 million to accelerate its plan to deploy what it calls Europe’s first fully on-demand aerial intelligence network—a drone-based alternative to expensive, slow, and manpower-heavy helicopter surveillance.
The round was led by US investor AlleyCorp, with support from OVNI in France.
Building the “missing link” between satellites and boots on the ground
Founded in 2023 by Daniel Nef and Dorian Millière, Rift is positioning itself as a sovereignty-driven DeepTech player, developing a new layer of aerial intelligence meant to sit between satellite imaging and field teams.
“Rift is building the missing link: an aerial intelligence network capable of performing reconnaissance in minutes, without an on-site pilot, for real-time decision-making,” said Nef, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “Our ambition is to equip Europe with a sovereign and resilient aerial-intelligence infrastructure, dedicated to public safety and critical infrastructure.”
The company’s offering brings together long-endurance VTOL drones, autonomous deployment stations, and RiftOS, a proprietary orchestration and analytics platform, allowing surveillance missions to be flown from a central operations hub. Rift claims its model can reduce mission costs by a factor of ten compared to helicopters, which can exceed €3,000 per hour and require pilots, technicians, and emergency teams on permanent standby.
A rising wave of European drone-intelligence funding
Rift’s raise comes amid a broader surge in European investment into autonomous aerial-intelligence systems. In the past year alone:
- Quantum Systems (Germany) raised €160M to scale autonomous aerial-intelligence platforms
- Voliro (Switzerland) secured €19.8M in a Series A extension for its inspection drones
- Orbotix (Poland) raised €6.5M for AI-driven defense drones
- Monopulse landed €1.12M for NATO-grade UAV tech
Altogether, roughly €187 million has flowed into the sector—though notably France has lacked a homegrown competitor in this specific segment, adding weight to Rift’s positioning as a sovereign alternative.
Scaling an autonomous reconnaissance network
Rift will use the capital to boost production of its autonomous drone stations, each roughly the size of a shipping container and equipped to host multiple drones flying in continuous relay for 24/7 aerial coverage.
The company also aims to fully automate the mission cycle—from planning to anomaly detection to reporting—by 2027, reducing the need for human oversight and enabling large-scale deployments for border monitoring, critical-site protection, and rapid crisis response.
OVNI Capital partner Luc Ryan said Rift’s integrated approach to hardware, software, and data gives it “a strategic position in technological sovereignty and state-infrastructure security,” arguing the company is helping shape Europe’s emerging aerial-intelligence market.
Eyes on a pan-European rollout
Rift is preparing to expand its network across Europe, starting with high-risk zones where threats such as intrusions, sabotage, or smuggling demand continuous vigilance. The company is already working on pilot projects in maritime and terrestrial surveillance with national authorities and industrial partners.
To support its ambitions, Rift plans to double its workforce by the end of 2026, with hires in R&D, data, certification, and production.
As governments and operators push for faster, more reliable, and more autonomous aerial oversight, Rift is betting that Europe’s next strategic infrastructure won’t be built in orbit or on the ground—but in the air, flying itself.
