In December 2025, Bloomberg reported that Quantum Systems had won a €210 million contract to supply 520 drone systems to the German army, with options for 500 more through 2032. The company is ten years old and its founder used to fly helicopters for the Bundeswehr. The drones the army is buying were already combat-proven in Ukraine before a single German soldier had trained on them.
That sequence tells the Quantum Systems story better than any corporate timeline. A decade ago, Florian Seibel was working on an aerospace PhD at the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich and building his first fixed-wing drone prototypes. Today, the company he founded in the suburb of Gilching is worth roughly €3 billion, has raised more than €400 million in venture capital and is preparing for what could be one of the largest European defence IPOs in years.
Between those two points lies a product portfolio that stretches from commercial surveying to jet-powered target drones, a co-production joint venture in Ukraine and one of the most aggressive hiring pushes in European defence tech. Quantum Systems now lists 146 open positions across nine cities.
From mapping to the battlefield
Quantum Systems started commercial. The Trinity F90+, a vertical take-off fixed-wing drone with 90 minutes of flight time and a modular payload bay, was built for surveyors and mapmakers and still sells in that market.
The military pivot came through the Vector. With a 2.8-metre wingspan and a maximum take-off weight under 10 kilograms, the current Vector AI is a tactical reconnaissance drone that two soldiers can deploy in under two minutes. It flies for more than 180 minutes, transmits AES-256-encrypted video over a range exceeding 60 kilometres and navigates without GPS. It integrates directly into battlefield networks through ATAK and CoT protocols.
What made the Vector more than another small drone was Ukraine. German military aid sent hundreds of Vector systems to Ukrainian forces beginning in 2022. By April 2025, at least 619 had been delivered. Thousands of flight hours in conditions no test range can replicate, including sustained Russian electronic warfare, turned the Vector into one of the most battle-tested small drones in NATO service.
That track record won the Falke contract. The German army's €210 million order for the Falke variant of the Vector reportedly represents around 75 per cent of the company's projected 2025 revenue. Romania ordered €18.4 million worth of systems in May 2024, Spain signed for 91 Vector drones at €27 million in April 2025 and Australia awarded a contract under its Land 129 Phase 4B programme.
Seven product lines in ten years
The Vector family is the core, but Quantum Systems now builds across a surprisingly wide range.
The Twister is a smaller, lighter reconnaissance drone weighing under 4 kilograms with a 1.25-metre wingspan. It deploys in two minutes and stays airborne for up to 90 minutes. Production has started in Ukraine.
The Sparta goes in the opposite direction. It is a catapult-launched mothership with a 200-kilometre operational radius and six to eight hours of endurance. Its job is to carry and deploy smaller drones deep behind front lines, extending their effective range. Three variants are in development for the Ukrainian armed forces.
The RAT (Red Air Target) is perhaps the most revealing product. Built in partnership with Airbus Defence and Space, it went from concept to first flight in six weeks and was unveiled at the Munich Security Conference in February 2026. It is a jet-powered, catapult-launched target drone that flies between 150 and 450 kilometres per hour, designed to simulate Shahed-style attacks so European air defence crews can train against realistic massed drone threats. A strike variant is reportedly in development.
For the US market, the Reliant is a larger carrier drone that launches smaller sub-drones called Archer.
The weapons question and the Ukraine model
Quantum Systems does not build weapons, and that was a deliberate choice. In 2024, Seibel spun off a separate company called Stark Defence to handle attack drones. The reason, according to reporting at the time, was that some Quantum Systems investors opposed developing weaponised products.
Stark now sells the OWE-V Virtus, a loitering munition with a 5-kilogram warhead that cruises at 120 kilometres per hour and was deployed in Ukraine within six months of its introduction. In August 2025, Quantum Systems and Stark demonstrated a Hunter-Killer system in which the Vector finds the target and the Virtus strikes it, tested in real combat conditions. Stark is reportedly raising at a $500 million valuation with Sequoia.
The split lets Quantum Systems sell reconnaissance drones to countries that will not buy weapons while still offering the full detect-and-strike capability through a partnership. It is a commercial structure built around political reality.
Ukraine runs through everything the company does. Beyond the Vector deliveries, Quantum Systems and Ukraine's Frontline Robotics formed Quantum Frontline Industries (QFI), a joint venture building an automated drone production line in Germany with capacity for 10,000 units per year. President Zelenskyy visited the facility. Separately, Quantum Systems invested in Ukrainian manufacturer WIY Drones to help scale production of the STRILA interceptor drone, with Germany funding the purchase of 15,000 units for Ukraine's National Guard.
Rather than straightforward arms export, Quantum Systems is building cross-border defence manufacturing infrastructure, with Ukrainian engineering knowledge flowing into German production systems and German capital flowing into Ukrainian factories.
What comes next
The numbers point in one direction. Quantum Systems raised €180 million in a Series C extension in November 2025, led by Balderton Capital, tripling its valuation to roughly €3 billion. It has since tapped Morgan Stanley to manage a further €400 to 600 million round at a valuation exceeding €6 billion, with an IPO in early 2027 potentially valuing it above €10 billion. Existing backers include Thiel Capital, Balderton Capital, HV Capital, Airbus Ventures and DTCP. The European Investment Bank provided a €70 million loan.
The hiring signals the same trajectory. Quantum Systems currently advertises 146 open positions across Gilching, Munich, Kyiv, Bucharest, Rostock, Berlin, Bonn and Tallinn. Software accounts for 31 of those roles, hardware for 27 and production and automation for 26, a profile that reflects what scaling from prototype to mass production actually demands.
Florian Seibel told Sifted that the challenge now is "to not become like one of the primes." Whether a company with seven product lines, operations in six countries and a potential €10 billion valuation can stay nimble is the question that will define its next decade. For now, Quantum Systems is doing what most European defence startups only talk about: building hardware, deploying it in combat and scaling production to match the demand.
Browse Quantum Systems' open roles on DefenceJobs or explore more European drone companies hiring in 2026.
Helsinki
Kyiv