Neros Technologies, a startup founded by former teenage drone racers, has secured a Defense Department contract worth up to $500 million to supply first-person-view drones to the U.S. Army, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The deal marks one of the largest Pentagon commitments to low-cost, expendable drone technology from a nontraditional defense contractor.
From Drone Racing to Defense
Founded in 2023 by Soren Monroe-Anderson and Olaf Hichwa, who competed as professional drone racers before entering the defense industry, Neros builds its Archer quadcopter FPV drone entirely without Chinese components. The company, headquartered in El Segundo, California, has positioned itself as a domestic alternative to the cheap Chinese-made drones that have dominated the market.
Neros was already on the Pentagon’s radar. The company was selected for the Army’s Purpose-Built Attritable System program in late 2025 and won approval on the Defense Innovation Unit’s Blue UAS list. It also signed a contract to deliver 6,000 Archer drones to Ukraine’s frontlines through the International Drone Coalition. Monroe-Anderson, now in his early twenties, has said the company can scale production to one million drones per year with sufficient Pentagon backing. Earlier this year, Neros acquired a 250,000-square-foot factory to support that ambition.
A Broader Push for Drone Manufacturing
The Neros contract reflects a wider Pentagon effort to build domestic drone production capacity. On Monday, West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey announced that Helsing, a German defense AI company valued at $18 billion, will invest $50 million to establish its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The plant will produce Helsing’s HX-2 AI-enabled strike drone — already combat-proven in Ukraine — at a rate of 2,000 per month, employing 60 workers at an average salary of $125,000.
“Factories win wars, and that’s exactly what we want to do in Berkeley County,” said Jennifer McArdle, general manager of Helsing’s U.S. subsidiary.
Pentagon’s Appetite for Attritable Drones
The contracts underscore how lessons from Ukraine’s war have reshaped American military procurement. The Army has begun training soldiers with FPV drones modeled on Ukrainian tactics, and spending on expendable drone systems has accelerated sharply. Separately, the Pentagon awarded AeroVironment a $500 million counter-drone contract on July 1, illustrating both sides of the emerging drone equation — the need for cheap offensive systems and the defenses to counter them.
Additional Resources for Inquisitive Minds:
MILITARYNYI. FPV Drone Manufacturer Plans to Deliver 1 Million Drones a Year to U.S. Military. July 7, 2025.
U.S. Department of War. Contracts for July 1, 2026
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