Norwegian defense technology startup Stendr said today it has closed on $5.4 million in pre-seed funding in order to deliver advanced artificial intelligence capabilities for modern weapons systems.

The round, which is one of the largest early-stage investments in Nordic defense history, was led by Rainfall, ACME and Skyfall, with participation from Startup Lab, Antler and a number of angel investors.

Stendr is led by Chief Executive Aleksander Leonard Larsen (pictured), who previously helped found Sky Mavis Inc., developer of the hit blockchain-based game “Axie Infinity.” After growing that game into a $3 billion ecosystem, Larsen is now turning his attention from digital assets to national security.

With Stendr, he said, he’s trying to build a “foundational technology stack” for a new “Nordic defense prime.” Essentially, it’s a vertically integrated hardware and software company focused on AI-enabled warfare.

The startup’s first order of business is drone defense. Recent conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated that traditional air defense systems are inadequate against autonomous and human-piloted drones. They were built to intercept multimillion dollar manned aircraft and hypersonic missiles, rather than swarms of cheap plastic drones that are often too small for those systems to track.

“The nature of warfare has changed,” Larsen explained. “Drones are cheap, autonomous and everywhere. Defense systems built for a previous era cannot keep pace. At Stendr, we are building the technology to find them, track them and give defenders the information to act, fully sovereign to Europe.”

Stendr’s AI-native platform will treat hardware and software as a single, vertically integrated platform. Instead of trying to bolt on AI to existing weapons systems, it will design a completely new system for drone defense, focused on multisensor technologies embedded in cost-effective hardware. The idea is to be able to detect, track and provide actionable intelligence on drone threats in real time.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research said AI is likely going to play an important role in drone warfare, likely both offensively and defensively. “It’s good to see a startup from allied nations entering the drone defense industry, which is a brand new field and already sorely needed,” the analyst said. “Militaries need better technology to address the asymmetric defense options that put them at a severe cost disadvantage.”

In the longer term, Stendr’s ambitions go far beyond just defending against drones. It said its goal is to provide North Atlantic Treaty Organization members with access to a nimble “Nordic alternative” that can deliver new systems in a small fraction of the time it takes for traditional defense contractors to come up with them.

Photo: Stendr