Aurelius Systems has raised $40 million in a Series A funding round to accelerate development and production of its autonomous directed-energy defence platform, Archimedes. The San Francisco-based company plans to use the capital to expand manufacturing, grow operations and strengthen a U.S.-based supply chain as demand for high-performance counter-drone solutions increases.
Draper Associates and KAS Venture Partners co-led the round, with participation from General Catalyst, Hanwha Defense USA, Outlander, Alumni Ventures, Bravo Victor Venture Capital, Detroit Venture Partners and Decisive Point. The investment reflects growing government spending on autonomous defence technologies capable of responding quickly to evolving aerial threats while reducing operational costs.
Archimedes is an AI-powered, laser-based counter-drone system designed to detect, track and defeat aerial threats without continuous human intervention. Chief executive Michael LaFramboise said coordinated drone attacks have fundamentally changed the modern defence landscape and that Archimedes was built as a scalable platform to protect people, infrastructure and critical assets. Draper Associates’ Andy Tang praised the company for demonstrating core technologies and building strategic deployment partnerships.
Recent milestones have reinforced the platform’s readiness. Aurelius formed an integration partnership with American Rheinmetall to broaden deployment opportunities, completed interoperability testing with command-and-control systems during Operation Jailbreak, and successfully validated the platform in the Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) 26-2 programme. These achievements support the company’s push toward commercial deployment.
The company currently employs 19 people and expects to more than double its workforce to over 40 by the end of 2026 as production scales. The Series A funding positions Aurelius to increase production capacity, deepen vertical integration and reduce reliance on external suppliers, aiming to deliver scalable AI-powered defensive systems across military and critical infrastructure sectors.
