SE3 raises $30 million for drone software that grew out of a Munich university lab

SE3, a Munich company that writes spatial-AI software for drones and ground vehicles, raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Accel, it said in an announcement on Thursday, November 12.

Three researchers, one lab, one software layer

SE3 was founded by Chief Executive Lukas Köstler, Chief Technology Officer Simon Klenk and Chief Science Officer Professor Daniel Cremers, and it spun out of Cremers' computer vision lab at the Technical University of Munich, the company said. Köstler previously worked on Tesla's Autopilot team and at Nvidia Research, Fortune reported.

The company says its software combines computer vision and AI to help machines turn sensor data into spatial understanding. In practice, it fuses sensor data from drones and ground vehicles made by different manufacturers into a shared 3D picture.

The university described the same technology in a July press release, saying it "is already being used in numerous projects by the German Armed Forces."

What the company says it has already delivered

SE3 said that in the last two years it has shipped thousands of systems and that it is working on multiple contracts with Ukraine and with Germany's armed forces, the Bundeswehr. Fortune reported that the company's technology is already deployed in Ukraine.

Köstler told Fortune that the most basic capability, drones locating themselves without GPS, has been delivered thousands of times. Lorenz Meier, founder and CEO of drone-software maker Auterion, said in the announcement: "Autonomy only counts if it holds up when satellite navigation is jammed and one operator is responsible for many vehicles."

Neither the announcement nor Fortune gave revenue, contract values or a valuation for SE3.

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Accel led the round, with participation from Keen, Lakestar and Seedcamp, according to the announcement. Fortune reported that SE3 emerged from stealth with €5.5 million ($6.1 million) in seed funding before this round.

The company said the money will go to its engineering, commercial and operations teams and that it is opening an office in the UK. Fortune reported that SE3 plans to grow from roughly 40 employees to about 120, about three times its current size (computed), and that defense will drive revenue for at least the next 12 months, Köstler said.

On the company's own account, its work depends on military customers: Köstler said in the announcement, "Working in defence means our technology has to deliver under pressure in the field."

A research-lab company still has to show repeat orders

We think SE3 shows how quickly a research group can turn into a supplier when a buyer needs one: a seed round followed by a $30 million Series A within months, and a customer list that includes a national army. What the sources do not show is revenue, how many of the thousands of systems are paid deployments, or how concentrated the business is among a few defense buyers.

The opportunity is software that works across makers' hardware, which reduces the need for a customer to pick a single drone supplier. The threat is dependence on defense budgets and on export decisions that the company does not control. We would watch for named customers beyond the Bundeswehr and for any figure on recurring revenue, and our view would change if contracts stay in development rather than moving to production.

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