Intelic raised €2 million from investors and €30 million from its customer

The most striking figure about Intelic is not the thirty million euros that the Ministry of Defence committed on 3 July 2026. It is the two million euros that the Amsterdam-based drone software company raised from investors beforehand. One round, led by Keen Venture Partners, in June 2024. Fifteen times more money from the customer than from the capital markets: that is an unusual ratio for a company that says it is on track to grow towards one hundred million euros in revenue.

Intelic, known until July 2025 as Avalor AI, was founded in September 2021 by Maurits Korthals Altes (CEO), Jeroen Lappenschaar (CTO) and Marc Derksen (CPO). They met at the Defence robotics and autonomous systems unit, where Korthals Altes worked as a student employee on his first drone project. Five months after the company was founded, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Why Defence is buying the software, not the drone

According to Intelic, the Netherlands is the first country to explicitly adopt a software-first strategy in building a military drone ecosystem. The contract runs for three years and centres on NEXUS, a command-and-control platform that will allow the armed forces to operate any brand and type of unmanned system, including multiple systems simultaneously.

That sounds technical, but the underlying problem is straightforward. The vast majority of military drones run on software built for the civilian market, with control panels featuring hundreds of buttons and interfaces that invite errors. Korthals Altes illustrates this with a lethal example: a drone lands a hundred metres from the agreed point, and the soldier sent to retrieve it is shot dead. Intelic therefore builds what it calls autonomy-first, with AI that takes work off the operator's hands across three mission areas: surveillance, logistics and attack.

"The challenge is no longer access to technology, but ensuring that those technologies can work together." Maurits Korthals Altes, CEO Intelic

The advantage lies in the integrations

The question that matters to every investor: what stops a competitor? Not the AI model, that can be copied. Intelic's advantage lies in the number of systems already connected to NEXUS, and in who is watching.

In May 2026, the company launched Intelic BASE, a procurement platform where European ministries can compare unmanned systems that are already compatible with NEXUS. Manufacturers from ten countries are connected to it, including Acecore Technologies, Avy, DeltaQuad, Beyond Vision, Airvolute and TAF Industries. Together, those parties claim to produce more than one hundred thousand UAVs per month and generate €1.2 billion in revenue. Every manufacturer that connects makes the platform more valuable to the next ministry, and vice versa.

There is something else that European competitors without frontline experience do not have. NEXUS has been running operationally in Ukraine since 2025, with more than eleven hundred licences, including on the attack drones of Gurzuf Defence. Every iteration is tested under combat conditions. That is a learning curve you cannot buy.

Key figures Intelic

• Founded September 2021, Amsterdam (as Avalor AI)

• External capital €2 million, Keen Venture Partners (June 2024)

• Defence contract over €30 million, three years (July 2026)

• Revenue target €4.8 million in 2025, €20 million in 2026

• Employees 45 in November 2025, now over 70

The golden share cuts both ways

The contract comes with an option that has not previously been applied to a Dutch defence company: Defence is exploring a golden share, a priority share that gives the state a veto over mergers, relocations and the admission of new shareholders. The Dutch House of Representatives still needs to approve it. State Secretary Derk Boswijk's reasoning is clear: it is not the hardware but the software that is the strategic asset, and that must not fall into foreign hands.

However, that knife cuts both ways, as Korthals Altes himself acknowledges. A state veto right could make his company less attractive to investors. That is not a theoretical objection. Competitor Auterion raised $130 million in a Series C led by Rheinmetall in September 2025, at a valuation above $600 million. Anyone wanting to keep pace at that rate needs capital, and capital is more expensive when the Dutch state can block who comes on board.

There is another tension here. Intelic wants to become the Android of defence, the open layer on which everyone builds, as opposed to vertically integrated players like Helsing, which the company itself calls the Apples. But an open standard with a veto right from one specific government is a harder sell for Berlin or Paris than a neutral layer. The deal that gives Intelic a head start in the Netherlands could complicate sales elsewhere.

Growing under time pressure

The organisation is keeping pace with the market. From fifteen people to 45 in just over a year, now over seventy, likely above one hundred next year, with teams in the Netherlands and Ukraine and plans for Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The revenue ambition runs from €4.8 million in 2025 to more than one hundred million after 2028.

What that does to a thirty-year-old founder, he sums up drily: "It has surprised me how quickly people start seeing me as the boss."

The stakes are bigger than one company. The Netherlands has committed thirty million euros to the proposition that software is the defining layer in drone warfare, and in doing so has tied itself to a single supplier at a moment when that supplier has fewer than one hundred employees. If Intelic succeeds in becoming the standard, Defence will have bought early and cheaply. If it does not, the armed forces will be locked into the wrong layer, and that is precisely the risk a golden share does not cover.

References

1. LINK Magazine (2026). Defensie investeert €30 miljoen in Nederlands dronesoftwareplatform. linkmagazine.nl

2. EU-Startups (2024). Amsterdam-based defense tech Avalor AI raises €2 million to enhance military unmanned systems. eu-startups.com

3. MT/Sprout (2025). Intelic (v/h Avalor AI) - Challenger50 van 2025. mtsprout.nl

4. NOS (2026). Defensie gaat nauw samenwerken met dronebedrijf, wil 'gouden aandeel'. nos.nl

5. MT/Sprout (2025). Intelic wil met software voor militaire drones de 'Android van defensie' worden. mtsprout.nl

6. Intelic (2026). About us. intelic.ai

7. DroneXL (2026). Netherlands Bets €30 Million That Drone Software Beats Drone Hardware. dronexl.co

8. EU-Startups (2026). Europe to strengthen drone sovereignty as Intelic launches unmanned systems procurement hub. eu-startups.com

9. Het Parool via Headliner (2026). Primeur: Defensie neemt optie op gouden aandeel in Nederlands bedrijf. headliner.nl

10. DroneXL (2025). Auterion Raises $130M To Scale AI-Powered Drone Swarms For Defense. dronexl.co

11. Tech.eu (2026). Netherlands adopts software-first strategy for military drones in multimillion-euro Intelic partnership. tech.eu

12. Dealroom.co (2026). Intelic company information, funding & investors. dealroom.co