AUSTIN, Texas, Oct 28 — Swarmer, Inc (“Swarmer”) (NASDAQ: SWMR), a drone autonomy platform company that has supported more than 100,000 real-world combat missions in Ukraine since April 2024, today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire certain intellectual property of Vataga Drone (“Vataga”), a Ukrainian defense technology company that produces first-person-view (FPV) and interceptor drones.
The transaction, comprising cash and equity, will provide Swarmer with rights in a portfolio of Vataga’s hardware and software engineering intellectual property, including FPV airframe designs, initiation electronics, ground-control equipment, development tooling and manufacturing documentation. Following completion of the transaction, Vataga CEO Maksym Melnyk and 14 members of the company’s hardware research and development team will join Swarmer, and Vataga will continue to operate as an independent manufacturing company.
Since being founded in 2023, Vataga’s VTG Spark initiation boards have been supplied for use in more than 100,000 Ukrainian drones and its NATO-codified FPV-10 “Peacemaker” platform has been fielded with more than 20 Ukrainian military units. Its 13-inch FPV attack drone is currently deployed in combat in eastern Ukraine using Swarmer’s Fire Raid mission template.
“Bringing battle-tested hardware capabilities in-house means we can create reliable full-stack solutions,” said Alex Fink, President and U.S. CEO of Swarmer. “We welcome Maksym Melnyk and his talented team of engineers to Swarmer. Together, our top priority will be scaling the use of swarming-enabled FPV drones and interceptors in combat.”
“We are excited to join Swarmer, whose success story has made them a recognized name in Ukraine’s defense technology sector,” said Melnyk, who will report directly to Fink as Vice President of Hardware. “We are looking forward to combining our hardware design capabilities with Swarmer’s software capabilities to produce complete end-to-end solutions.”