Tel Aviv: The effort to develop and validate counter swarm systems continues. Israel-US company Skapion is developing a mobile, end-to-end counter-swarm defence system designed to detect, engage and neutralise large-scale drone attacks.
According to the company, the system is being developed to support hundreds of simultaneous engagements while significantly reducing interception costs compared with conventional air defence solutions. It is intended to operate alongside manoeuvring forces or deployed in forward operating bases, critical infrastructure and fixed air-defence assets, including communication-denied, challenging weather conditions and contested operational environments.
Skapion was founded by an experienced team of defence, engineering and technology leaders. The founding team includes Brig Gen (Res.) Pini Yungman, former General Manager of Rafael’s Air and Missile Defence Systems division and one of the architects of Iron drone and David’s Sling – Israel’s advanced air-defence programmes; Ido Bar-On, former defence executive at XTEND and retired IDF special operations officer; Gal Goren, Co-founder and CTO; entrepreneur Zafrir Yoeli; and defence entrepreneur Yaron Karp.
Skapion is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its R&D centre in Ramat Gan, Israel.
“Drone swarms require a fundamentally different approach to air defence,” said Ido Bar-On, Co-founder and CEO of Skapion. “Our system is designed from the ground up to address the scale, speed and operational demands of coordinated drone attacks. This investment enables us to accelerate development, expand our engineering team and bring this capability to defence customers facing one of today’s fastest-growing operational challenges.”
The company’s next-generation mobile counter-swarm defence system is designed to detect, engage and neutralise coordinated drone attacks at scale.
Built to address the operational challenges posed by mass unmanned aerial threats, the company’s solution is designed to provide an independent counter-swarm defence layer for military forces, critical infrastructure and other strategic assets operating in complex environments.
Skapion, announced on July 9 that it has secured $36 million in seed funding. The round was co-led by UP Partners and Khosla Ventures, with participation from existing investors TBD VC, qFund and Fusion VC, new investor Stratos Ventures, and additional investors.
The investment comes as defence organisations worldwide accelerate efforts to field scalable counter-UAS and counter-swarm capabilities in response to the growing use of mass drone attacks across modern battlefields.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
