Mara Inc. raises $7M to develop autonomous drone intercept platform

Defense technology startup Mara Inc. has secured $7 million in pre-seed funding to develop Spike, an autonomous counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) designed to combat drone swarms.

The funding round was led by Khosla Ventures and included participation from a16z Speedrun, Night Capital, Palmdrive, Protagonist, Freedom Fund, and Indicator Fund. The capital will be used to transition Spike from field testing to real-world deployment, targeting the growing threat of low-cost, first-person-view (FPV) drones used on modern battlefields and against critical infrastructure.

Industry experts note a significant economic imbalance in current air defense, where multi-million dollar interceptors, such as the Patriot system, are often used to neutralize drones that cost only a few hundred dollars. Mara aims to address this by providing a low-cost, automated platform capable of managing coordinated, simultaneous attacks from multiple directions.