PARIS — Dassault Aviation, the French maker of the Rafale fighter jet, led a €200 million ($234 million) funding round by autonomous drone maker Harmattan AI as part of a strategic partnership, valuing the Paris-based startup at €1.4 billion and creating France’s first defense unicorn.
The partnership will help Harmattan develop embedded artificial intelligence for Dassault Aviation’s future air combat systems, such as the future F5 standard of the Rafale, in particular for control of unmanned aerial systems, the companies said in a joint statement on Monday.
The deal comes as France, Germany and Spain are struggling to move forward with plans for a joint Future Combat Air System, with infighting between Dassault Aviation and Airbus about work share and project authority. FCAS is meant to combine a next-generation fighter with unmanned aircraft and drone carriers.
“This is excellent news for our strategic autonomy, for the technological superiority of our armed forces in the field of AI-activated defense drones, as well as for our economy,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X, calling the partnership between the two companies “essential.”
Macron had planned to meet with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in December to resolve differences in the FCAS program by the end of 2025, but Paris and Berlin haven’t made any public announcements on the topic since.
“This partnership with Harmattan AI reflects our commitment to integrating high-value autonomy into the next generation of combat air systems,” Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier said in the statement. “We reinforce our ability to deliver the advanced capabilities required by our armed forces in the decades ahead.”
Trappier has said that France, through Dassault Aviation and its partners Safran and Thales, has the technological ability to develop a next-generation fighter aircraft on its own if necessary.
The valuation in the latest series B funding “significantly increases” from a previous series A funding, in part due to growing interest from major industrial players, Harmattan said in an emailed response to questions.
The startup declined to identify other investors in the latest funding round for now, nor the size of Dassault’s investment. French investment firm Motier Ventures said it renewed its investment in the company, in a LinkedIn post.
Harmattan currently has more than 130 employees, with a median experience of 15 years, according to the company, which in the past year hired executives from companies including Safran and Isar Aerospace.
Dassault is working on an air-combat drone that will serve as an unmanned wingman for the future F5 standard Rafale, and the partnership with Harmattan will support development of embedded AI for both aircraft, the companies said. The partnership fits in an “overarching strategy” to integrate sovereign AI into Dassault Aviation’s combat systems, according to the statement.
Harmattan will use proceeds from the latest funding round to expand deployment of its AI-enabled products and scale industrial manufacturing of its platforms for intelligence, search and reconnaissance, drone interception and electronic warfare, according to the statement.
The deal with Dassault “marks a decisive step in the emergence of a new generation of autonomous defense systems,” Harmattan AI CEO and co-founder Mouad M’Ghari said in the statement. “By combining frontier AI with world-class military aviation expertise, we are shaping the future of collaborative air combat.”
Harmattan was founded in April 2024, and is working on what it calls “vertically integrated autonomous systems,” including layered air defenses, coordinated autonomous surveillance and strike drones, electronic-warfare products and command-and-control platforms. The company previously raised $42 million in early-stage funding from investors including venture capital firms FirstMark and Atlantic VC, according to Sifted.
The startup in September won an order from the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence to provide as many as 3,000 autonomous drones, following a June order from France’s Armed Forces Ministry for delivery of 1,000 combat drones by the end of 2025.
The Harmattan craft supplied to the French forces last year was a quadcopter drone with a weight of 1.8 kilograms and 40 minutes of flight time, equipped with infrared cameras supplied by French firm Lynred.
Editor’s note: This story was updated with a statement from Harmattan.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
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