Latvia’s Origin, founded by ex-Airdog creators, introduces BEAK, a reusable, precision-strike military drone designed for cost-effective modern warfare.
The Ukraine dispute highlighted the fast-paced evolution and high costs of modern warfare. Smaller nations often seek cost-effective defense alternatives while major nations invest in accurate-strike systems, helicopters and tanks.
Origin, based in Latvia, is the latest defence tech startup that intends to fill this gap by developing autarchic drones that are reusable, delivering munitions at a fraction of conventional costs. The company hitherto has agreements with two unnamed NATO countries, which Ilya Nevdah and Agris Kipurs co-founded in 2022 following their exit from consumer drone startup Airdog, aKipurs.
Origin’s CEO explained the reason for the transition from consumer drones to military applications.
Origin’s main artifact, BEAK, is an accurately guided ISR drone equipped with autonomous flight capabilities, high resistance to radio jamming and a camera, BEAK can deliver munitions without self-destruction, allowing for reuse and significant cost savings, Unlike many “first-person view” (FPV) drones designed to explode on impact,
With a tarrif-per-strike about twenty times lower than standard military drones. Kipurs describes BEAK as “a flying Javelin” The system is designed to provide smaller nations with an affordable precision-strike solution.
Origin has embossed €2.4 million in a funding round and received an additional €1.6 million in EU endowment and Ministry of Defence, Latvia supports totaling €4 million led by Change Ventures since its founding,
Andris K. Berzinswho is a Change Ventures partner has known Kipurs and Nevdah for over a decade. Citing the team’s experience and rapid progress as key investment drivers, he sees Origin’s potential to transform the precision weapons market,
This warfare is a great breakthrough for tech companies and war dogs amid parallel wars happening between Israel and Palestine and Ukraine and Russia respectively but humanity on both sides would be miserably crippled rendering this world a place of technology led graveyard.
