How Fortem is helping the U.S. and its allies get ahead of the drone threat

In the month since waves of rogue drones violated the airspace of Poland, Denmark, and other European nations, the defense calculus in NATO capitals has changed. What once felt hypo­thet­ical now feels urgent.

That urgency is showing up in real-world procurement. In Q3, DCVC-backed Fortem Tech­nolo­gies received purchase orders for a dozen of its counter-UAS (CUAS) systems from U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East – roughly double the volume from the same period a year ago. As CEO Jon Gruen explained in an interview with Axios this week, Fortem is seeing customers expanding existing deployments as threats intensify.

Fortem’s systems have already been tested in some of the world’s most challenging envi­ron­ments, not least of which are the residences and secure facilities of multiple world leaders. Since 2022, Ukraine has deployed the company’s technology to defend against Russian attack drones. Fortem has protected soft targets at global events like the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and the company’s technology is used at the U.S. southern border to guard against cartel-operated drones.

The recent accel­er­a­tion in orders reflects two realities. First, drones are now the preferred tool of asymmetric threat actors, from nation-states to cartels. Second, the systems built to stop them – especially in dense civilian or cross-border envi­ron­ments – must be low-collateral, rapidly deployable, scalable, and proven in real-world operations.

Fortem meets all these require­ments. The company’s SkyDome® family of CUAS systems combines highly sensitive, compact radars and AI-powered DroneHunter® inter­cep­tors that coordinate in intelligent hunter-killer flocks, along with real time sensor-fusion and C3I AI guidance and oversight systems, all into a modular package that can protect a single refinery or integrate seamlessly into a continent-spanning defense grid. The elements of a Fortem system can be carried in and deployed from a backpack in any environment from the harshest desert to the Arctic.

DroneHunter is especially suited for urban and civilian envi­ron­ments, where traditional kinetic defenses pose unac­cept­able risk. One of the most widely deployed versions of the interceptor uses a net to capture rogue drones – Spider Man – style – enabling safe recovery of the aircraft for forensic analysis. Fortem also offers defense customers extremely effective kinetic and other large-scale swarm-defeat solutions for appropriate environments.

DCVC has backed Fortem from the start, and we’re proud to support a team that continues to deliver in the field – not just in theory. As the European Union advances plans for a ​“drone wall” to protect its eastern flank, Fortem is already on the front lines, helping allied partners defend troops, soft targets, and critical infrastructure.