Grid Aero, an aerospace startup building low-cost, autonomous aircraft for long-range operations, has raised $20 million in a Series A round co-led by Bison Ventures and Geodesic Capital. The financing also included participation from Stony Lonesome Group and Alumni Ventures, alongside returning investors Ubiquity Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, and Commonweal Ventures.
Based in San Leandro, California, and founded in 2024, Grid Aero is developing rugged uncrewed aircraft designed to move heavy payloads across long distances and operate reliably from austere or degraded locations. The company is positioning its platform for missions where infrastructure is limited, airspace is contested, and conventional logistics assumptions can fail, emphasizing simpler, lower-cost airframes paired with advanced autonomy to support fleet-scale operations.
The company said the new funding will help advance its Lifter Lite aircraft from testing into operational deployments, including support for major exercises and early customer use cases. Grid Aero framed the round as a transition point from a validated prototype toward a fielded platform, coming just over a year after the company’s founding.
Grid Aero is also aligning its roadmap with U.S. defense priorities around contested logistics and autonomy. The company pointed to the Department of Defense’s identification of critical technology areas, noting alignment with contested logistics, applied AI, and scalable autonomous systems.
While the initial focus is defense use cases, Grid Aero said it is drawing interest beyond military applications, citing recent partnerships with Everts Air and Aviation Without Borders. The company described potential roles for its autonomous aircraft in remote community support, humanitarian missions, and persistent aerial operations where access constraints are high, and reliability is critical.
KEY QUOTES
“We’re focused on solving major problems for the warfighter, starting with contested logistics. Those same challenges of range, resilience, and operating in constrained environments also define many commercial, humanitarian, and remote operations. This funding allows us to rapidly field autonomous aircraft to deliver scalable capability into real-world operations to meet growing demand across missions.”
Arthur Dubois, CEO of Grid Aero
“What Grid Aero has accomplished in less than 18 months is rare. Not only have they already built their flagship aircraft, but they are also building a logistics capability that operates where traditional systems can’t. We’re excited to fund the next phase of their growth, as they move from rapid development to real-world scale.”
Ben Hemani, Founding Partner at Bison Ventures
